This page details the main characters of Sword Art Online. Click here to return to the main index.

Real world names are in western naming order. Followed by their online name and worlds they played in.^note

Note: Unmarked spoilers ahead.^noteEspecially from the web novels. If you're starting the anime, do not read this page!

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Heroes of Aincrad

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sao_crew.png

From left to right: (Back) Klein, Sinon, Leafa, Kirito, Asuna, Lisbeth (Front) Silica, Yui (Not featured) Agil, Alice

Initially composed of the SAO survivors that became Kirito's close friends, before expanding to other friends he meets along the way in other games. After the clearing of SAO, they primarily hang out in ALO and frequently party up to go questing.

Badass Crew: While few in number, they are composed of SAO and ALO's strongest players that far outstrip larger guilds and parties.
Badass Family: Kirito and Asuna are married in game and dating in real life, with Yui as their Happily Adopted daughter. Suguha/Leafa is Kirito's sister/cousin, everyone considers Silica to be their younger sister, Yuuki is Asuna's surrogate sister, and all of them are absolute badasses.
Battle Harem: The crew is largely made up of an ensemble of girls interested in Kirito, and they are all Action Girls capable of fighting for themselves in whatever virtual reality they reside in. When needing to take on bosses, Kirito gathers them up and they all go to kick ass together. Though the Harem aspect is downplayed considering Kirito only has eyes for Asuna.
Because You Were Nice to Me: It is never outright stated, but it seems to be a reason why Kirito's Unwanted Harem (and Klein) follow him.
- Klein: The first time they met was in SAO, where Kirito helped Klein out in learning the basics.
- Asuna: Kirito taught her to enjoy the good aspects of the virtual world while they were there, rather than spending every waking second obsessing on going back to the real world. This, not only makes her change her perspective on the virtual world, but on life in general, since she learns to enjoy herself, while before she was giving in to the constant pressure from her family. Asuna explicitly states this is what made her to fall in love with him.
- Silica: Rescuing her from mobs, helping her revive Pina, and being a big brother to her definitely counts.
- Lisbeth: Giving her a coat in the cold and saving her from a deadly fall definitely helped out.
- Leafa: Kirito saving her from the Salamander PKers and later refusing to abandon her even when it opposed his interests.
  - Suguha is actually a Decon-Recon Switch, as her infatuation for Kazuto was started upon the latter no longer being distant with her, and during her Anguished Declaration of Love, admitted that she wished he hadn't become nicer to her. But her being Easily Forgiven is also how she makes up with Kirito.
- Sinon: While it took quite long to earn her trust due to getting off on the wrong foot, Sinon developed a Fire-Forged Friendship after he goes to great lengths to rescue her from Death Gun, and comforted her when she confessed to killing someone in real life.
Big Damn Heroes: Sometimes mixed with The Cavalry.
- In Alicization, the group arrives with an army of players from ALO and some from GGO to assist the Human Army against the Foreign Players summoned by Glowgen.
- In Unital Ring, Liz, Silica and Yui arrive along with the Bashin Tribe to save Kirito and the others from Bolan's PK Party, with Liz making Kirito a new set of gear before joining Silica in attacking them from behind.
Cast Speciation:
- Kirito and Klein are both sword users, but have polar opposite personalities, with Kirito being stoic and serious, while Klein is flamboyant and goofy.
- In ALO, Asuna and Leafa both serve as support magic users, however Asuna is calm and mature, while Leafa is childish and impulsive.
- Lisbeth and Agil both run shops as merchants and serve as tanks, but Lisbeth is mischievous and playful while Agil is responsible and mature.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Almost all of the core SAO gang have a color associated with them. Kirito (Black), Asuna (White and Red), Leafa (Leaf Green), Sinon (Cyan and Olive Green), Lisbeth (Pink), Klein (Red), Agil (Emerald Green), Yuuki (Purple), Alice (Gold and Blue), and Eugeo (Blue). The only exception is Silica who has variably been given Red, Blue, and Yellow, without any specific fixed color.
Crippling Overspecialization: In ALO their group is severely lacking in offensive magic users. Aside from Sinon, who is a ranger, everyone else uses melee attacks. While Asuna and Leafa only specialize in support magic like healing. This comes to bite them hard in the Calibur arc where they go up against a pair of bosses with one specializing in physical resistance and the other specializing in magic resistance, with the physical resistance one guarding the magic resistance one for the majority of the battle.
Damager, Healer, Tank: These roles are split over the party in ALO.
- Damager: Virtually everyone who isn't Asuna, Leafa, or Agil serve as Damagers (Kirito, Klein, Silica, Sinon), and all of them aside from Sinon being melee damagers. Especially Kirito thanks to his overwhelmingly high DPS.
- Healer: Asuna and Leafa are assigned to this role thanks to their races specializing in healing magic. Though both are capable of switching to Damager if need be.
- Tank: Agil fits the role of Tank the best, but when he's not around Kirito or Klein typically pick up the role and take the brunt of the damage. Lisbeth also fills this role to a degree due to being the only shield user.
Face Fault: Kirito states that this was the group's reaction in "Rainbow Bridge" when Leafa, after explaining who the Æsir are to the others, comes up with nothing in regards to the egg Kraken was trying to get his hands on.
Family of Choice: Having fought and bled side by side as brothers and sisters in arms for two whole years, the Heroes of Aincrad can confide and trust in each other on a level closer than most blood-families in the real world, as most "normal" people (such as Asuna's cruel and unfeeling mother) refuse to regard them as anything more than kids who have played online games a lot longer than most people.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: While there aren’t many instances of trios forming in this group, one prominent trio that does match this trope is seen in Girl Ops comprised of Lisbeth (fighter), Silica (thief), and Leafa (mage).
Guest-Star Party Member:
- Yuuki doesn't officially join up with the group in canon, but she does hang out with them for a considerable amount of time, especially after Asuna helped defeat the boss and Kirito hooked her up with a VR probe. Averted in the games where she's an official party member straight from the get go and permanently stays since she avoided her canon counterpart's unfortunate fate.
- Kikuoka/Chrysheight occasionally goes questing with them, though whether or not they consider him a friend is another story.
- Yuna provides assistance to them in Ordinal Scale, even directly aiding them in combat in the Final Battle where she shields them from a boss monster and tells Kirito what he has to do.
- In Lost Song, after the conclusion of the main story line, Kirito offers to party up with Sumeragi who accepts and is seen attending the celebrations with the rest of the SAO main cast.
- In Accel Worlds vs Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight, the SAO characters meet and team up with the Burst Linkers from Accel World, with any number of them able to party up with the SAO gang.
- The Fatal Bullet crew (The Player, Kureha, Zeliska, ArFa-sys, and Itsuki) are usually considered their own group, but are still good friends with Kirito's team and often hang out or party up with them for quests.
Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: While there's no shortage of girls who smash, the ones who shoot are exclusively girls (Sinon, Asuna, Leafa), while the guys (Kirito, Klein, Agil) are all solely close range melee users. Klein even explicitly stated he refuses to use magic.
Home Base:
- In the real world, the gang use the Dicey Cafe (the Good-Guy Bar run by Agil) as a Local Hangout to meet up and discuss plans.
- In-game, Kirito and Asuna's log cabin mostly serves this purpose in ALO, once they buy it in New Aincrad.
- In Infinity Moment/Hollow Fragment, the gang uses Agil's Good-Guy Bar in Arc Sophia as one. It's where they all go to rest and recuperate, where they hang out when they aren't clearing the game, and even where they sleep with them all having private quarters upstairs. The vast majority of the Slice of Life cutscenes take place here.
- Fatal Bullet has Kirito and Asuna's apartment in Glocken City, where they and most of their friends hang out. Lisbeth and Agil run their gun enhancement and appraising businesses out of it, and it's also where Asuna can use her Tailoring skill to make any outfits the player has brought her the designs for. Though the Player also has their own apartment where they and ArFa-Sys hang out.
Honorary Uncles and Aunts: While Yui is officially the daughter of Kirito and Asuna, every other Hero of Aincrad and those who join the fellowship thereafter come to love and care for the kind little A.I as a niece, becoming doting Uncles and Aunts to her thereafter. In Leafa/Suguha's case, it helps that she already literally is Yui's Aunt thanks to being Kirito's sister. Meanwhile Alice is hoping to take advantage of this trope in order to someday become Yui's step-mom.
Improbably Female Cast: Despite the general conception that There Are No Girls on the Internet, most of the main cast is made up of girls.
Intergenerational Friendship: The kids all get along well with Klein and Agil who are both adults.
Multinational Team:
- In ALO their group features a very diverse selection of the races available in Alfheim. These include: Spriggan (Kirito), Sylph (Leafa), Undine (Asuna), Leprechaun (Lisbeth), Cait-Sith (Silica, Sinon, Alice), Salamander (Klein), Gnome (Agil), and Navigation Pixie (Yui).
- The game adaptation further diversifies them by including: Imp (Yuuki), Gnome (Strea), Spriggan (Philia), Leprechaun (Rain), and Pooka (Seven). If one counts Memory Defrag Eugeo, Alice, and Premiere are actually the only human members of the group.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Almost all of are exclusively referred to be their gamer names even when others know about their real names. The only exceptions are Asuna who goes by her real name online and Leafa/Suguha who Kirito is used to calling by real name.
Out of Focus: After the Aincrad arc, most of the supporting members tend to take a backseat while Kirito and the newest Arc Heroine go up against the Big Bad.
- In the Fairy Dance, while Kirito and Leafa team up in ALO to rescue Asuna, none of the group aside from Agil (who gets one episode) appear prior to the season finale, where they all have a reunion.
- In Phantom Bullet, while the majority of the group are featured when Kirito and Sinon are dealing with Death Gun in GGO, they are mainly reduced to watching footage of the BoB tournament and gasping in horror at what they see. Asuna plays a slightly larger role than the others as she goes to Kirito's real life location to check on him.
- Mother's Rosario focuses on Asuna's adventures with Yuuki, with everyone else (Kirito included) getting relegated to the background. Though Kirito (and Klein) do pop up a few times to give some assistance, while the girls accompany Asuna during her match against Yuuki and later when taking Yuuki's VR probe to sight see.
- Averted in Ordinal Scale where the majority of characters get far more focus than usual, especially Lisbeth, Silica, and Klein. Only Leafa gets sidelined for most of the film, while Sinon plays a small role in the action.
- In Alicization, Kirito gets trapped in the Underworld and firmly locked away from his friends, having only Eugeo for company, as he struggles to find a way back to the real world.
- In War of the Underworld, Kirito himself takes a back seat due a combination of his Fluctlight being damaged to the point of comatose and his Heroic BSoD over Eugeo's death, where instead Alice and Asuna took over as the new leads. It took Higa attempting to fix Kirito's Fluctlight and Eugeo's memory fragment successfully interrupting his suicide attempt to force him back into the lead role again.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits:
- Their group is composed of The Black Swordsman (Kirito), the Vice-Commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath (Asuna), a hopeless romantic samurai wannabe (Klein), an Ultimate Blacksmith (Lisbeth), a young dragon tamer (Silica), a Scary Black Man merchant (Agil), a kendo practitioner wind fairy (Leafa), a Cold Sniper (Sinon), a Benevolent A.I. who looks like a little girl (Yui), and an Integrity Knight with No Social Skills (Alice).
- The games would later add an impossibly strong Womanchild (Strea), a Treasure Hunter (Philia), an ill girl who is the World's Best Warrior (Yuuki), a pair of Russian Idol Singer sisters (Rain and Seven), and an Emotionless Girl who is also an Apocalypse Maiden (Premiere). They also have a Knowledge Broker (Argo), a Dark Elf knight (Kizmel), another Emotionless Girl (Tia), and a Lovable Coward (Eugeo) as Guest Star Party Members.
- In Integral Factor they are also joined by a Shrinking Violet (Sachi), along with the Player and Koharu.
Shipper on Deck: Despite some of them having feelings for him themselves, the group seems to fully supports Kirito and Asuna's relationship, in part due to their close friendship with Asuna. There are even instances where they'll encourage one to go be with the other and give them time alone.
Sixth Ranger:
- Leafa doesn't join the group until Extra Edition, where she finally meets Kirito's friends and gets accepted.
- Sinon is introduced as a member after the Death Gun incident of the Phantom Bullet arc is wrapped up.
- Yuuki doesn't really became a member in canon, as Asuna instead joined her guild the Sleeping Knights, but in the video game Lost Song she joins the group almost immediately after she meets Kirito and Asuna.
- Alice joins the crew after the events of Alicization.
- The game continuity also adds additional members like Strea, Philia, Rain, Seven, and Premiere.
Skewed Priorities: Kirito expresses the concern, and is proven right when he's forced to come clean, that if they found out about him being afflicted with Noose of the Accursed, they'd want to prioritise curing him over defending Ruis Na Rig. Fortunately, he's able to convince to focus on the town defence.
The Team: While they are not an official guild, they frequently party up together, such as in the Calibur arc, these are generally the roles. Kirito is unofficially The Leader, making general decisions on actions. Asuna is basically the Number Two, because she is the most likely of taking up leadership after Kirito, a contrast to his personality and is also the Team Mom to the rest of the group, including her love rivals. She also fills the spot of The Medic in ALO along with the Team Chef due to her amazing cooking skills. Klein is The Big Guy, being the Big Fun Boisterous Bruiser of the team who roleplays a samurai, which means he refuses to use magic and insists on following (what he thinks is) Bushido and protect the team. Lisbeth is The Engineer due to being an Ultimate Blacksmith, managing all of the team's gear. Silica is Dragon Tamer who everyone protects like a little sister, which makes The Heart who can boost team morale. Agil is can be seen as The Team Benefactor because he is the primary Token Adult who runs the Good-Guy Bar which serves as Home Base. Leafa is the Flight specialist as well as The Medic alongside Asuna. She can also be Ms. Exposition regarding ALO due to being the long time veteran. Sinon is the sniper/archer who provides ranged support. Yui is The Smart Gal given she's an Exposition Fairy who provides Infodumps to help the team out.
Team Pet: Pina the feathered dragon. While she's officially Silica's familiar, she gets along with most of the other characters, especially Kirito who has had a fair share of interactions with her.
Theme Initials: Lots of these in regards to their gamer names.
- Three characters' names begin with 'A' (Asuna, Agil, Alice), two with the letter 'K' (Kirito, Klein), two with the letter 'L' (Leafa, Lisbeth), two with the letter 'S' (Sinon, Silica). Including Yuuki that would mean two with 'Y' (Yuuki, Yui).
- Holds true for their real names as well. The same three with 'A' (Asuna, Andrew, Alice) and two with Y (Yuuki, Yui), two with 'K' (Kazuto, Keiko), two with 'S' (Suguha, Shino), two with 'R' (Ryōtarō, Rika).
Token Adult: Agil usually fills the role because he is mature, responsible and his place of business is the group's Home Base in real life. While Klein is an adult too, the way he acts makes him One of the Kids.
Token Non-Human:
- Yui, who is a Benevolent A.I. that is programmed to be a Ridiculously Human Robot.
- Alice too. Not only is she an AI like Yui, but is also a Robot Girl in the RW.
True Companions: The best of friends who treat each other like family, this is especially the case for the SAO survivors who are drawn together.
Twofer Token Minority: Agil is both the only one who isn't native Japanese and one of the adults in a group of teens.
Ungrateful Bastard: Played for Laughs in "Rainbow Bridge". After they're all blown away by Hraesvelg's tornado and take each other's hands, Kirito ends up grabbing a branch of the tree and vows not to let go. Asuna, Leafa, Liz, Silica and even Pina however are quick to tell him to let go, since they don't want to risk pissing off Hraesvelg.
Unwanted Harem: Specifically Kirito's Harem, due to Kirito's uncanny ability to attract girls, leading the male-to-female gender ratio to get bigger and bigger with each passing season.

Girls Ops

An unofficial group in ALO consisting of Lisbeth, Silica and Leafa, first formed during the Phantom Bullet arc while Kirito is busy dealing with the "Death Gun" incident in GGO. They are later joined by their friend Lux.

Amazon Brigade: While the main group doesn't quite reach this status, on account of Kirito being their Leader and Klein and Agil being frequent Guest Star Party Members, this group counts on account of being all females.
Clothing Damage: The group all suffers this in Volume 1 during the Angel's Whisper quest, encountering a group of slimes that corrode armor, creating a punch of revealing patches in their clothes. It's much worse than they anticipated however, as when they go to Ashley's for repairs she reveals that they were all hit by a debuff that permanent decreased their statistical values, hence the high price for repairs.
Cool Big Sis: Briefly act as this to Emely, a little NPC girl who's quest involves her getting separated from her sister, in Volume 2.
Determinator: Despite being faced by Einherjhar Kirito, who's essentially SAO Kirito with multiple HP bars and a Turn Red skill that increases his already absurd strength, the girls refuse to back down against him if it means preventing him and the other NPCs copied from SAO character data from being misused.
Four-Man Band: While the exact roles tend to be traded or shared between them in some way, they all have consistent roles.
- Liz is the Casanova Wannabe. She's very much The Tease and is hinted to be a Covert Pervert, as shown in the Swimsuit Contest arc, where she picked out their revealing swimsuits and resorted to tactics where the beach goers would Eating the Eye Candy when they start falling behind in the rankings. On the less pervy side of this role, she also seems to be the de-facto Leader of the group and often suggests courses of action.
- Silica is the Only Sane Woman. She's arguably the least quirky of the group, and often serves as Liz and Lux's Straight Man.
- Leafa is the Butt-Monkey. While all the girls get their fair bit of humiliation, especially Silica in regards to her figure and tendency to get hung upside down, Leafa definitely gets it the worst each time, either getting the brunt of things or getting embarrassing situations exclusive to her. Lisbeth and Silica even state that they enjoy her baffled reactions to things, such as the Angel's Tsundere attitude that borders of childishness.
- Lux is, surprisingly enough, The Smart Girl. She's arguably the most skilled fighter among the girls aside from Leafa, being able to replicate Kirito's Dual Wielding to a degree, and chances are when someone notices or realizes something in regards to the quest they're doing or another person's true intentions, it's gonna be Lux.
Ms. Fanservice: The four of them are very cute and attractive women, and the series will often put them into Fanserviceey scenarios.
- The first volume has them going through some revealing Clothing Damage at the hands of some slimes, and their clothes are in that state for the rest of the volume and and in one scene of Volume 2 where they go to visit Ashley about repairs.
- Invoked by Liz in Volume 2 in the Swimsuit Contest, where she, with the help of Ashley, chooses rather revealing and eye catching swimsuits for the group, telling them to serve Yakisoba in a certain way^note, having them play volleyball to cause their breasts to bounce, and having them go around in Fanservicey outfits, including a Playboy Bunny, a Bifauxnen butler outfit, and some revealing circus outfits. She almost forces them all into playing volleyball again wearing monokinis before they discover the quest giving girl.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: When the four discover Gwen's hideout, they stumble upon a trap that seperates them, with Gwen confronting Lux and informing her that she ordered her goons to capture them with the intent of killing them in front of her to torment her. Unfortunately for her, they're able to regroup while fighting off their attackers.
"Oh, Crap!" Smile: Flash one in response to Granze's more innocent looking smile, knowing that she's going to attack them with her hammer.
Power of Love: Realizing they don't really stand a chance against Einherjhar Kirito after he defeats Kuro, the girls instead try to get him to break out of his programming like Rossa and have him remember being the Kirito from SAO. Silica and Liz, at the envious goading of Leafa, attempt to do this by reminding him of their first meetings. Liz even come close to confessing to him before chickening out at the last second. It's only when they mention Asuna that it gets a reaction.
Walking Swimsuit Scene: In Volume 2, the girls spend the majority of the volume taking part in a swimsuit contest to pay for the repairs for the clothes, that were damaged in the previous volume.
You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Gives one to Lux after learning about her past in Laughing Coffin, saying that everyone made tough and morally questionable choices to survive in SAO and she shouldn't beat herself up over hers.

Main Characters

Character-Specific Pages

Suguha Kirigaya / Leafa / Earth Goddess Terraria

Suguha Kirigaya / Leafa (ALO, OS, UW, UR) / Earth Goddess Terraria (UW)

Voiced by: Ayana Taketatsu (Japanese), Cassandra Lee Morris (English), Azucena Miranda (Latin American Spanish), Greta Ruiz (European Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/character_26028.png

^{Click here to see Leafa in Ordinal Scale}

^{Click here to see Terraria}

^{Click here to see Leafa's Unital Ring avatar}

^{Click here to see Suguha}

"You shouldn't give up on the one you love so easily."

Kirito's younger cousin and sister by adoption, and the Deuteragonist of Fairy Dance (Volumes 3-4). In ALO, she is a Sylph warrior called Leafa and is well known for being one of the fastest flyers in the game. Like the other characters, she is smart IRL and in game, competent, and caring. Meeting Kirito in-game without realizing this mysterious player was actually her real-life brother, she assists him into getting to the World Tree to rescue Asuna. After both discovering their true identities, they reconcile both in-game and in real life, with Leafa being accepted into the SAO gang.

After Kirito gets trapped in the Underworld and Asuna had dived in to save him, Leafa gets called on to assist and enters the Underworld using the Super Account, Earth Goddess Terraria.

Action Girl: It's kinda a requirement in ALO. She's also one IRL, as her kendo proficiency carries over to ALO.
Adaptational Curves:
- In the web novels, Suguha was originally meant to have a smaller bust size and Kawahara didn't bother changing it. His editor suggested him to make her stacked in other adaptations.
- Some of the game adaptations such as Millennium Twilight and Fatal Bullet have her bust even more bursting in size. The story wastes no time in having other characters poke fun of this.
Adaptational Early Appearance:
- The video game continuity has her appear in SAO during the adaptation of the Aincrad arc, while in canon she doesn't debut until the Fairy Dance arc of ALO. Storywise, this is because Suguha intentionally used a NerveGear to enter SAO so she could be with and help out her brother.
- She shows up even earlier in Integral Factor, where she appears on Floor 3 as opposed to after Floor 76 in Infinity Moment/Hollow Fragment. But otherwise her plot of entering SAO using her ALO account to find her brother is pretty much the same.
Advertised Extra: In Ordinal Scale she's given the same level of promotion as the rest of the major characters, but she was sidelined for most of the film due to attending a kendo training camp. This is likely due to OS occurring in the real world and given that Suguha is a top-four national-level kendo practitioner, she was taken out of the spotlight to balance out the story.
Affectionate Nickname: Is called "Sugu" by Kazuto, although he refrained from doing so while distancing himself from her.
All Love Is Unrequited: Is in love with Kirito, who's her cousin and adopted brother with Suguha fully aware that it's wrong and that Kirito himself doesn't reciprocate and is in love with Asuna instead. After some angst, she manages to get over her romantic feelings for him during the Fairy Dance arc.
Amazonian Beauty: Thanks to her kendo training, she has strong and well-defined muscles which become prominent even when making small movements, and she's found to be attractive by quite a few other Sylphs.
Anguished Declaration of Love: The English dub of Season 1 Episode 22 has her saying "I love you" towards Kazuto before telling him to leave her alone due to the trauma of discovering that he and Kirito are one and the same.
Arc Hero: The main heroine of the Fairy Dance arc alongside Kirito.
Authority Equals Asskicking: By the time of Unital Ring, she's become Vice-Captain of her School's Kendo club. When asked by Silica, she states that the reason she isn't captain is that her own style is unique to her, and that in such a club you'd generally want someone with an orthodox style in charge.
Back-to-Back Badasses: Does this with Kirito when charging the World Tree.
Badass Adorable: In real life, she's a cute and cheerful kendo champ. In the game, she's a mighty Sylph warrior that has Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold.
Big Brother Attraction: Went through this in Fairy Dance arc as she started having feelings for Kazuto, though technically they're Not Blood Siblings and actually cousins. Though unlike most examples of this trope she feels it's wrong and tries to suppress these emotions by pursuing Kirito in-game, who turns out to be Kazuto all along. She grows out of this by the end of the arc and starts being his little sister.
Big Damn Heroes: Her rescue of Lilpilin from Dee Eye Ell, then her and Lilpilin's rescue of Scheta and the Pugilists from the American Players.
Big Eater: Kirito often brings up her excessive appetite, especially for sweets. Luckily for her, the physical lifestyle she indulges in keeps her from gaining weight.
Big Little Sister: Her ALO avatar looks a great deal older and taller than real life, making it harder to tell she's younger than Kirito. But she often times still behaves like a young child would despite having a physically developed body.
Blessed with Suck: She describes Terraria's infinitely regenerating HP as more of a curse than a divine blessing since unlike other players who simply die after suffering enough injury, Leafa has to live through every single cut and stab she suffers without a Pain Absorber to minimize the pain. That being said, she manages to power through with sheer determination.
Blow You Away: As a Sylph, she specializes in Wind magic.
Boob-Based Gag: Leafa is the go-to character for all of the boob-related jokes thanks to her enormous bust. These range from other girls showing jealousy over how endowed she is, Liz groping her, her boobs jiggling, or having her bosom press against someone else which is usually Kirito. During Ordinal Scale, as Leafa arrives at the Final Boss, Yui was actually hiding in her cleavage.
Boring, but Practical: While not as grand as Stacia's ability to alter the terrain and Solus' bow that's capable of taking out entire armies and ability of Flight^note, Terraria's infinitely-regenerating life renders Leafa practically immortal and, combined with her skills in Kendo and sheer determination to help block out any pain, turns her into a One-Woman Army capable of taking out large groups of players single-handedly.
Boyish Short Hair: Has her hair in a short bob IRL and is a sports-loving tomboy. As Leafa she has a Tomboyish Ponytail instead.
Brought Down to Badass: In real life. She has no gear, Sword Arts, or magic, but Suguha is still more athletic than Kirito and his friends, having trained in kendo since childhood and being a national-level quarterfinalist. In Ordinal Scale, which takes place IRL using augmented reality, Suguha dominates the scene.
Brother–Sister Incest: Technically, they're cousins, but because Kirito's parents died, Suguha became his adoptive sister, who just so happens to gain an attraction to her big "brother". Finding out that she wasn't his real sister is what caused Kirito to distance himself from her. She calls him out on this later.
Butt-Monkey: Is this in the Girl's Ops Spin-Off manga. While she’s usually victim to the same things that happen to the rest of the girls, she often either gets the brunt of it or is the sole victim of other embarrassing scenarios. She’s arguably got the most revealing Clothing Damage out of the girls during the first arc, gets accused of being a pervert by the others when she tries investigating Lux’s disappeared tattoo, forced to participate in a swimsuit contest, suffers a Wardrobe Malfunction because of Liz, forced to do something embarrassing offscreen by Liz, gets her clothes shredded again after falling for a razor wire trap, used by the other girls to check for similar traps since her clothes are already damaged, and being forced to strip so Silica can repair her clothes. She’s also the victim of a Running Gag where the other three girls, being SAO Survivors, discuss things that took place in the Death Game such as quests and people they met, making her feel left out. And then, as if to add insult to injury, the Einherjhar Kirito, after regaining his agency, effectively doesn't know who she is due to not recognising Suguha's Leafa Avatar and only having the barest minimum of his IRL memories.
Buxom Beauty Standard: She has a well-endowed figure that is often commented on and is the source of Male Gaze shots. Just being near her causes A-Cup Angst in other girls, even when they're not that small in size.
Call of the Wild Blue Yonder:
- One of Leafa's defining characteristics is her love of flying through the air as a Sylph. She tried ALO to experience this magical phenomena and once she had she couldn't be without it.
- In Fatal Bullet, this actually hinders her enjoyment of GGO compared to her friends, since there were no ways to simulate flight.
Casting Gag: This is the second time Ayana Taketatsu plays a little sister who has a strained relationship with her brother.
Chekhov's Gunman: Kirito mentions her in passing at the very beginning of the series when telling Klein about his family, and a bit more when telling Silica about how she reminds him of his sister. In the anime, she appears leaving for kendo practice in the first episode before her brother logs into SAO.
Clingy Jealous Girl: Gets a bit jealous in Season 1 Episode 20 when Sakuya and Alicia, the leaders of the Sylph and Cait-Sith races, get a bit too friendly with Kirito after he saves them from an ambush.
Closet Geek: She has a lot of interest in Mythology and Folk tales, which can prove useful in the quests in ALO since they're often based on these.
Clothing Damage:
- She's been the victim of this twice in Girls' Ops. In the first arc, she and the other girls are victims of a slime that lowers equipment durability, creating a lot of revealing holes and there being enough damage to cost 1,000,000 yrld to repair. Happens again in a later arc when she falls for a razor wire trap due to rushing ahead of the others.
- Happens in Accel World vs. Sword Art Online, where during a quest to get honey, Leafa gets to close to a boss with a special attack that destroys armor, she has a difficult time covering up in front of Kirito.
Color Motif: Almost always associated with and dresses in the color green, which is fitting considering she's a Sylph. Even in Ordinal Scale her outfit has a green trim while she's given a green Color Wash, while in Fatal Bullet her outfit is predominantly green. Her Leafa avatar also has emerald green eyes while in real life her eyes have a green tint.
Contrasting Sequel Protagonist:
- To Asuna. Asuna started off as a complete stranger to Kirito and gradually got to know him. Suguha is Kazuto's real-life adoptive sister and probably the closest person in his life. Asuna is elegant and ladylike due to her upper-class upbringing, while Suguha is a tomboy who partakes in kendo. Asuna is revealed to be older than Kirito by a year, while Suguha is younger by a year. Asuna's story arc had her not wishing to pursue a relationship with Kirito at first before getting together with him, while Suguha had the opposite journey whereby she had feelings for Kirito but forcibly pushes herself away.
- Furthermore, she contrasts all the other Arc Heroes in that she never develops a personal relationship with the Big Bad of her main arc, Sugou Noboyuki, or for that matter even met him. Instead it is Asuna who gets tied to him, while Leafa deals with the secondary antagonists being the Player Killing Salamanders of ALO.
Crystal Dragon Jesus: Ends up becoming this to the Orcs as "The Green Swordswoman" after her role in War, with Lilpilin proclaiming her their Goddess and Messiah and with them trying to build a statue tall enough that all of the Dark Territory can see it. Kirito even ends up accidentally giving them ideas for their newfound religion, like praying to her before eating and a casual comment of her visiting one day leading to a prophecy of her second coming.
Curtains Match the Window: In real life, she has black hair and black eyes (sometimes blue).
D-Cup Distress: Poor girl is on the receiving end of a lot of jokes over her enormous bust, especially in the game adaptation.
Deuteragonist: She is the female lead in the Fairy Dance arc and just as important to the story as Kirito.
Depending on the Writer:
- The size of her bust is extremely inconsistent depending on the media, and sometimes even in the same media, as her bust seems to have shrunk in Alicization anime, only to regain it's size later on.
- This also applies to her sword. It's general design and her Kendo experience would suggest it's a Katana, but the gameverse tends to categories it as either a One-Handed Sword or a One-Handed Curved Sword. It's only in Unital Ring that we get a clear cut answer (see Swiss-Army Weapon below).
Determinator: Despite the lack of a pain absorber causing her to feel every injury inflicted on her, including getting multiple spears in the back and one in her eye, with the Terraria Avatar's Healing Factor preventing her from dying and prolonging her suffering, Leafa's still able to power through and singlehandedly fight off and kill all the remaining American players, only stopping once they're all dead.
Dramatic Irony: For the first half of the Fairy Dance arc, we know that Leafa is Suguha and Kirito is Kazuto. However, Suguha doesn't know that Kirito is Kazuto, and Kazuto doesn't know that Leafa is Suguha.
Dude Magnet: Exploited. She's noted to be extremely popular among the Sylphs due to her cheerful personality and good looks, something noted by Recon, one of her close admirers. This gets Exploited by Sigurd after he loses to her in the Swilvane Fighting Tournament, with him inviting her to join his personal party in hopes that her popularity among the Sylphs would net him a bit more prestige.
Early-Bird Cameo: In the anime, she's shown going off to kendo practice, and on the news, sobbing as she realizes Kazuto is trapped in the game.
Establishing Character Moment:
- In Hollow Fragment, she enters SAO and turns to see Kirito and Asuna approaching. She excitedly greets him as "Onii-chan" much to Kirito's confusion.
- Integral Factor has her making her debut by falling from a tree which she had climbed in an attempt to find her brother.
Eye Scream: Gruesomely gets her left eye skewered in War of Underworld. Fortunately, she has infinitely regenerating health, but without a pain absorber, you can bet that it hurts!
Famed In-Story: Because of her speed and skill she is one of the Five Great Sylphs and generally treated like a celebrity.
Foil: To Asuna, in particular the arc about her relationship with Kirito. Asuna was at first turned off by Kirito and slowly developed feelings for him over time and felt happy for the first time in her life. Suguha had held feelings for Kazuto for quite some time but forced herself to repress these as she believed they were wrong. Also while Kirito developed feelings for Asuna mutually, he was completely unaware of Suguha's feelings for him. Ultimately what kept Asuna going throughout SAO was her love for Kirito, while Suguha's story is about moving past her attraction towards Kirito and assist him as his little sister.
"Freaky Friday" Flip: In Hollow Realization she somehow swaps avatars with Lisbeth and quite enjoys being the Blacksmith, but awkwardness ensues when she runs into Kirito who never figures out what is up with the OOC Liz, despite 'Lisbeth' calling him "Onii-chan", referring to herself in the third person, and asking very personal questions about Leafa.
Freaky Is Cool: She is rather fond of creatures that other people think are "creepy" or "weird." Notably, she finds Tonki, a creature that is a cross between an elephant and a jellyfish, adorable.
Genki Girl: Downplayed. When she isn’t too deep in thought or uncomfortable, she’s generally the most upbeat person in any group she’s in and usually the most excitable while also being rather grounded and rational when need be.
Genre Savvy: The video games reveal Leafa is actually fairly well-versed in mythology, which is quite helpful in ALO which is a game heavily derived from mythology from various cultures.
Girls Love Stuffed Animals: She has cute animal bean bags in her room.
Good Thing You Can Heal: As Terraria she has infinitely-regenerating life which basically makes her immortal and able to regenerate from any wound. Good thing, because she gets stabbed through the eye at one point.
Gratuitous English: In the Japanese version, she sometimes drops English words mid dialogue with "Okay" being a common one for her.
Green-Eyed Monster: Girls Ops reveals some jealousy towards her SAO friends, namely Silica and Liz, due to often feeling like a third wheel when doing quests originating from SAO and not sharing any memories of SAO with Kirito, on account of not being there. This culminates in her getting angry at Silica and Liz during the fight with Einherjhar Kirito when they deny having any special attachment to the real Kirito after their encounters with him in SAO, in part due to her envy.
Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: As Leafa, her avatar is blonde and remains kind-hearted.
Healing Factor: As Terraria her special ability is infinitely-regenerating health so is effectively immortal. Though this has the added downside of her being a victim of Good Thing You Can Heal as she cannot die from her wounds and has to keep enduring the pain.
Heavier than It Looks: Downplayed. Kazuto describes her as being "monstrously muscular" and a lot heavier than she looks when she's wearing her baggy school uniform. While he undercuts this in his narration by claiming to be exaggerating, the third-person narration does describe her as big-boned and strong from her kendo training.
He Is Not My Boyfriend: Is insistent about this for Recon when Kirito asks about them. Turns out Recon had a huge crush on her that she wasn't aware of.
Heroes Prefer Swords: Like her brother, her preferred weapon is a sword, likely so she can make use her IRL Kendo experience. However, at least in ALO, there seems to be some confusion about whether her signature sword is katana due to it's design, or if it's classified as some manner of One-Handed Sword, something the game adaptations don't help in clarifying.
- In Ordinal Scale and as Terraria in the Underworld, she's shown to still be rather capable wielding a double-edged sword like the ones her brother uses.
Hero of Another Story: Had her own adventures in ALO before Kirito joined the game.
Heroic BSoD: She doesn't take very well to the news that both the cousin/brother she was trying to forget and the Spriggan she came to love are the same person. She spends the end of Season 1 Episode 22 crying unto herself in her room.
Hypocrite: Believes herself to be this during Fairy Dance, prompting Kazuto to not give up on Asuna despite her Arranged Marriage while she believes she should give up on her own feelings for him.
I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: She used to hate VRMMO games, particularly when her brother became trapped in one. She then gave ALfheim Online a try and discovered that she really enjoyed it.
I Just Want to Be Free: She plays Alfheim Online because she loves the freedom to fly wherever she wants. In the light novel, she referred to her Sylph duties and party responsibilities as "chains attached to her wings". This is why she had only minor hesitation in becoming a renegade.
I Know Mortal Kombat: Unlike Kazuto, she is an inversion of this trope. Her years of studying kendo give her a tremendous edge over other players.
Informed Ability: Downplayed. She's cited as one of the Five Great Sylphs, in part due to her Master Swordswoman status as a result of her IRL Kendo training and her amazing speed as a flier, which is fast enough that only Kirito with his old SAO stats could keep pace with her. However, throughout Fairy Dance, she doesn't get many opportunities to prove this, with Kirito regulating her to a healing role during their fights against the Salamanders sent by Sigurd and during the raid on the World Tree. And while she does get into a duel with Kirito, it's... well, Kirito and it's ultimately revealed that she was holding back and was gonna throw the fight anyway. And while she does get to kick all sorts of ass later as Terraria, it should be noted that she logged in as a Physical God with a powerful Healing Factor and lacked her ability of Flight, meaning it's likely not a good indicator.
I Regret Nothing: Unlike Kirito, Sinon and maybe Asuna, all three of which have pretty severe trauma from their experiences, Leafa is shown to be remarkably well-adjusted after killing Dee Eye Ell, despite her previous vow to not harm any of the Artificial Fluctlights. Justified since she did largely did it to defend herself and Lilpilin from, as she put it, "pure evil", and Rising Steel shows that Lilpilin explained to Leafa what Dee Eye Ell did to his people before she showed up, lessening the blow of guilt she may have otherwise felt.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Falls in love with Kazuto, but after seeing him with Asuna, she moves on to Kirito, only to discover that it's her brother/cousin all along.
Iconic Sequel Character: Doesn't appear until the second arc, despite being a female lead.
Image Song: She has a total of four. "Face To You" (Suguha), "Sky The Graffiti" (Leafa), "Sing All Overtures" (which is sung by Kirito, Asuna, Yui, Silica, Lisbeth and herself), "Memorial Calibur" (which is sung by Silica, Yui, Lisbeth and herself).
Katanas Are Just Better: Her preferred weapon. Justified as she practices kendo in real life, and is very good (national-level middle school quarter-finalist).
Kissing Cousins: Deep down, she wants this with Kazuto, being in love with him. However, she also knows this is wrong, he would never go for it, and she can't tell anyone because of the very likely backlash, since they're also adoptive siblings. So she tries to get over him by loving Kirito, not knowing they're the same guy...
Leeroy Jenkins:
- Essentially her plan to deal with Vecta. Since her Terraria Avatar has a Healing Factor that makes her effectively immortal, Leafa's best plan was to have Lilpilin, who she happened to spawn in front of, capture her and take her to Vecta so she can attack and kill him, betting that her immortality would be effective enough for her to withstand his attacks and deal a fatal blow.
- This proves to be a bad habit of hers in Girls' Ops.
  - During the fight with the monsters from Garnet's quest, she's quick to charge at one of them to attack, only to get electrocuted by it and stunned, giving the boss an opening to stomp on her.
  - A more embarrassing example occurs when the girls, with the help of Adie, tries breaking into Elves and Shoemakers through a secret sewer dungeon. Upon coming to a spiral staircase with a wide open space in the center with an open ceiling, which would allow Flight, Leafa's quick to jump ahead and try flying to the top instead of taking the stairs before Adie can warn her. As a result, she falls for a razor wire that damages her sword and utterly shreds her clothes.
Leitmotif: Aerial Fight, a remix of Swordland with a fast-paced theme giving the sense of soaring through the sky.
Letting Her Hair Down: One event in Hollow Fragment has Leafa undoing her ponytail and letting her hair hang down. Kirito is taken by surprise on how different she looks and thinks it looks cute.
Light Is Good: As the Earth Goddess Terraria in the Underworld, having logged in to save her brother along with Asuna and Sinon and to help protect the Artificial Fluctlights residing there.
Lightning Bruiser: Having years of experience in kendo have made her both strong IRL and in-game. Also happens to be the fastest-flying player in ALO.
Little Sister Heroine: Technically younger-by-a-year cousin, but Kirito's relationship with Suguha is like this because they were raised together by her parents since he was a year old, along with Suguha showing Big Brother Attraction towards Kirito. She does grow out of it by the end of the Fairy Dance arc.
Luminescent Blush: When she realized that she had fallen asleep in Kirito's bed, with cleavage visible, and that he had woken up before her and noticed.
Loves My Alter Ego: Falls in love with Kirito, unaware that he is actually Kazuto. Since she had previously fallen in love with Kazuto, only to give up on winning his affections and tried to divert her feelings to Kirito instead. Finding out they were actually the same person is very hard on her.
Made of Iron: The Terraria account falls under Good Thing You Can Heal, but this means that Suguha herself lands firmly in this trope. Underworld lacks a pain absorber, and Sugou taking several vicious attacks with ALO's pain absorber turned off led to him being crippled by phantom pain in the real world. Suguha shows no signs of such pain at the end of War of Underworld despite being absolutely brutalized by enemy forces while using the Soul Translator's much more complete full-dive system, including an eye-shot not too different from the one that ruined Sugou's vision.
Magic Knight: Skilled with using both attack magic and her katana.
Male Gaze: Has a ridiculously high amount of close-ups of her bosom.
Master Swordsman: While Kirito may be the greatest VR swordsman, Suguha surpasses him in real life, being a top-four national-level kendo practitioner.
Meaningful Name: The kanji for Suguha's name translates into "straight leaf", which fits with her VRMMO character's name "Leafa". In addition, "suguha" is one type of hamon pattern found on katana^note, fitting for a swordswoman whose skills are on par with Kirito's.
More Dakka: Uses a FAMAS G2 assault rifle as her long gun in Fatal Bullet, which (true to its real-life counterpart) has one of the highest rates of fire of any assault rifle or even light-machine gun in the game.
Ms. Fanservice: The animated adaptation regularly puts both her real life and in-game counterpart in situations that would emphasize◊ her◊ ample◊ breasts◊, not to mention the former being the first female character to be shown fully nude in a Shower of Angst (with the nether regions alone covered by Censor Steam).
- In side content such as the games, she often has scenes heavy with Fanservice.
Mythology Gag: Integral Factor has its own reenactment of Hollow Fragment's scene of Leafa finding Kirito in-game and revealing herself to be his sister.
Named Weapon: As revealed in Unital Ring, her sword is called Lysavindr.
Nightmare Fetishist: She's the only person who finds Tonky (a jellyfish-elephant hybrid monster) cute.
Noble Bigot: Downplayed, but she was this back in Fairy Dance. While it's evident that the blonde hair wasn't just for show, this didn't stop her from being racist to other races like most players. Namely, she frequently poked fun at Kirito and his "useless Spriggan magic" during their journey to the World Tree, such as when she gave a Backhanded Compliment when he used a spell to give them both night vision. She largely seems to have grown out of this however.
Noodle Incident: During the Swimsuit Contest Arc in Girls' Ops, Lux and Silica return from selling Yakisoba to find Lisbeth and Leafa waiting for them, the latter sporting a Luminescent Blush and declaring that she'll never something ever again and later lamenting how she got so little points despite doing something so embarrassing. Despite Lux and Silica's increasing curiosity, what Liz forced her to do is never elaborated on.
Not Blood Siblings: She falls in love with her adopted brother and cousin who was raised with her since they were infants, only to get her heart broken. Then gets it inadvertently broken again by him in ALO. They do eventually make up, and she goes back to affectionately referring to Kirito as "Onii-Chan" both in real life and in-game.
Odd Friendship: With Alice, who is also an expert swordswoman like her.
Older Alter Ego: It's somewhat difficult to discern due to how the characters are sometimes rendered, but her Leafa avatar is supposed to more resemble an adult woman.
One-Woman Army: In the Alicization arc, she fights an entire army of 3,000 foreign players despite her injuries before finally passing out from exhaustion.
Online Alias: Leafa.
The Paragon: She enters the Underworld as Terraria, where she treated Lilipilin as an equal to herself and fought for the orcs and defended them from foreign players. Due to her efforts in the War, the orcs began to revere and worship her as their goddess.
Pay Evil unto Evil: While she's initially reluctant to kill any of the Artificial Fluctlights, she ends up cuting down Dee Eye Ell after she tries to Life Drain her to death and when kill Lilpilin, stating that she's pure evil.
I'm cutting down evil to save another human.
Physical God: As Earth Goddess Terraria in the Alicization arc.
Pointy Ears: Like all other ALO players her ears are pointy. However hers are particularly notable in that they stay pointy even when she imports her avatar to other games. She lost them later in Unital Ring as a result of the Seed-built VRMMOs being fused into the titular game.
Pre-Mortem One-Liner: I'm cutting down evil to save another human.
Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Shares this with Philia in the videogame continuity, though it gets special focus in Hollow Realization during their shared events for preparing Leafa for a kendo tournament. Leafa grows to enjoy Philia's enthusiasm with training, becomes depressed when she twists her ankle not because she can't compete, but because it means all of Philia's efforts were for naught, and actually bursts into tears when Philia chooses to give up a really rare item during a quest for a golden cup that looks like a trophy as a consolidation award.
Red Baron: She is referred to as the "Speedaholic". Post-Alicization, she is known by the UW people as the "Green Swordswoman".
Reluctant Fanservice Girl:
- In Hollow Realization, she and Kirito take part in a unique quest that would have allowed her to improve her Sword Abilities. The catch is in order to earn this, she had to put on a Stripperific outfit consisting of only a Hakama^note Kendo trousers and a Sarashi.
- In Girls' Ops, she is a frequent victim of Clothing Damage and Wardrobe Malfunction, often courtsey of Liz intentionally exploiting her mature igure for their advantage
Shipper on Deck: Accel World vs. Sword Art Online has Leafa/Suguha pondering how her future would turn out, where it is revealed that she is really enthusiastic about having Asuna get married to her brother for real, which would allow her to gain an elder sister of sorts. This thoroughly embarrasses Asuna and Kirito, although Asuna later remarks that she has always wanted a little sister and marriage would allow Leafa/Suguha to fill that role perfectly. Kirito watches the whole thing and starts wondering if he is just a means to an end.
Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy: She at times plays the long-range magic support to Kirito's melee user. Though she can switch to melee at will and is very proficient at it.
Sibling Team: With Kirito during the Fairy Dance arc onwards. Although they didn't know it at the time and only found out each other's real identities nearing the end of the arc.
Sibling Yin-Yang: With Kirito. He's quiet and brooding, while she's much more sociable and cheerful, trying to get back in his life when he pushed her away after finding out that they weren't actually blood siblings.
Sleepyhead: In Hollow Realization, Kirito claims she has the "superpower" of being able to fall asleep within seconds of finding a comfortable spot. During one event with a sleepover, she literally plops down onto the bed and talks about how much fun they're going to have before literally falling asleep and disconnecting from the game (since the Amusphere automatically logs out anyone who falls asleep while playing) so fast that everyone but Kirito wonders what just happened. She logs back in right as Lisbeth is telling a ghost story, which manages to freak all of the assembled out with her utterly oblivious.
Speed Demon: She is dubbed a "Speedaholic" because of her obsession with flying at high speeds in Alfheim Online, as well as being the fastest flyer for a long period of time.
Spell My Name With An S: Official translations give her avatar's name as "Leafa". However, typos in the anime occasionally write it out as "Leefa" and fan translations of the novels used "Lyfa". A literal reading of the kana used in the novels would give you "Rifa".
Stepford Smiler: Tries to be this when she meets Recon at Alne after learning that Kirito and Kazuto are the same person. She tries to keep him from worrying by putting on a smile and insist that they go back to Swilvane. He can immediately tell something's wrong though.
Stop Worshipping Me: Downplayed. In the 2nd Anniversary event in Unleash Blading when Eydis reveals to her how she's been effectively deified in the Dark Territory, and mentioning how names starting with "Lea" have become popular as a result, she's flattered but also rather embarrassed.
Story-Breaker Power: Zig-Zagged. Suguha was side-lined for most of Ordinal Scale since she's a top-four national-level kendo practitioner within her age group. As a result, she would have had a significant advantage over her incompletely-trained brother Kirito and his friends against the reincarnated monsters of Aincrad, significantly shortening the story; thought it is debatable how well she would have fared against Eiji, as her style Kendo is a sport with rules that indoctrinates its practitioners to refrain from maliciously harming your opponent by habit, whereas the martial art that Eiji used to maim, cripple and hospitalize Klein and his friends is clearly a battlefield-style designed to kill; and coupled with the physical enhancement of the military-grade exosuit provided by Doctor Shigemura, Eiji would just have easily hospitalized Suguha if she (unlike Kirito and Klein, has never actually taken a life) tried to fight him face to face.
Strong and Skilled: In an unusual example for this series, she's actually this in the real world, being a national-level kendo practitioner who is physically stronger than her gamer friends. In Ordinal Scale which takes place in the real world and the characters need to use their physical bodies, Leafa/Suguha is the one who dominates due to her physical training on top of her gamer experience.
Super-Senses: Sylphs have the best hearing in all the fairy families, meaning Leafa can hear something before any of her friends can.
Super-Speed: Sylphs are naturally fast and she's faster than the standard Sylph. Before Kirito came along with his illegal New Game Plus stats, no one could keep up with her maximum speed.
Super Drowning Skills: Despite Suguha being incredible athletic and fit, she can't swim if her life depended on it. Even shallow water can have her spluttering. Memory Defrag reveals that this may be ingrained with a traumatic childhood incident where Suguha fell into the backyard pond and almost drowned, before Kazuto rescued her.
Supporting Protagonist: The third light novel volume is partly written from her perspective, albeit in a limited third person focused on her (as opposed to Kirito and Lisbeth's first person segments). She provides her thoughts while helping Kirito on his rescue mission.
Swiss-Army Weapon: In Unital Ring, we learn that her sword, Lysavindr, is categorised as a Long Katana/Bastard Sword, a category of sword that allows her to use One-Handed Sword Skills when held in one hand and Two-Handed Sword Skills when held in both hands. While useful, this comes at the expense of being heavier than a One-Handed Sword, which can make using it one-handed difficult, yet less powerful than a Two-Handed One, though Leafa manages since it feels the most familiar to her as a Kendoka.
They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: When they're at school, she demands that Shinichi call her "Kirigaya-san" rather than her first name or her Online Alias.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: Has this dynamic with her friend (and predecessor as female lead) Asuna, being the sport-loving tomboy to Asuna's elegant lady-like Girly Girl.
Tomboyish Ponytail: She has her long blonde hair in a ponytail as Leafa, and is a sports-loving tomboy IRL.
Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Has the personality of a tomboy, enjoys sports, but she's fragile in some ways and has cute knick-knacks involving a kitty backpack.
Tomato in the Mirror: After Leafa agrees to party with Kirito to the World Tree, we get to see her log out from her perspective. Cut to Suguha wearing an Amusphere.
Tsundere: Probably the most tsun out of the entire cast, being quick to anger and violently aggressive. She starts off as "Tsuntsun" type but gradually switches to "Dere" over the course of the series. Kirito noticed she can switch out from angry to sweet in mere moments, especially prominent with Recon who she's more than happy to attack if he acts too weird.
Uncanny Family Resemblance:
- Growing up, Suguha and Kazuto looked so alike each other that other people would mistake them for sisters (not siblings, sisters).
- Averted when it comes to Leafa. Due to her avatar being so different to her real-life appearance, others have a hard time believing she's Kirito's sister.
Victoria's Secret Compartment: In Ordinal Scale, Yui emerges from her cleavage during the Final Boss fight.
Wardrobe Malfunction: In materials such as games and side-stories, Leafa is a frequent victim of this in large part due to her large breasts.
- In Girls' Ops Volume 2, she’s complaining about the swimsuit she was forced into by Liz for the swimsuit contest. The girl in question attempts one of her normal Skinship Gropes to tease her only to accidentally lift one of the top’s pads in front of a bunch of in-game beachgoers.
- In Hollow Realization she, Kirito and Philia run to a cliff to escape a large group of boar monsters and she almost falls off, only to be saved by Philia grabbing her by the collar. This however raises her top and almost exposes her breasts. The game even shamelessly gives the player a good eyeful of her Underboobs.
- In the second part of Kirito’s Gun Gale Online Wars, she ends up ensnared in a ribbon trap meant for Kirito which serves to put emphasis on her breasts when Yui tries getting them off. When Kirito goes to help her after beating both Sinon and Asuna, he lifts the ribbon and in turn accidentally lifts her top and exposing her rack.
Weak, but Skilled:
- Stat-wise she's below average because she spends little time grinding, farming etc. but this doesn't matter in Alfheim Online. It's primarily skill-based so she becomes one of the most powerful Sylphs on dent of her real world skill that translates into game skill. This puts her at a disadvantage against Sigurd in terms of stats and gear and their duels always turn into a protracted game of wearing each other down. She defeated him pre-series.
- She's able to display the Skilled part in Unital Ring. When helping gather wooden planks to repair the cottage, she cuts down a tree and proceeds to use a series of Two-Handed Sword Skills, which are hinted to be Powerful, but Inaccurate, to precisely cut the downed tree into up seven planks, earning her the praise of Asuna and Alice.
What the Hell, Hero?: After Kirito is forced to reveal that he got hit by Mutasina’s Noose of the Accursed and kept it a secret, Suguha’s quick to barge into his room IRL to call him out on his tendency to take on burdens himself without telling others, with Yui chipping in.
Womanchild: As Leafa she looks mature and fully developed, but she still tends to behave childishly like a little girl would.
You Are Worth Hell: In Infinity Moment/Hollow Fragment, she obtained her own NerveGear and logged into SAO, knowing fell well that she like all players will trapped within the game and can die for real, just so she can be reunited with her brother.

Yuuki Konno / Yuuki

Yuuki Konno / Yuuki (ALO, AE) / Sword Goddess Gladia (UW)

Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (Japanese), Erica Mendez (English), Eva Andrés (European Spanish), Amanda Hinojosa (Latin American Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/character_24015.png

^{Click here to see Yuuki IRL (spoiler)}

"There are things you can only share with someone by fighting. For instance, how serious you are."

The deuteragonist of Mother's Rosario (Volume 7) and the energetic, cheerful Imp leader of the Sleeping Knights guild. She holds a street duel competition, hoping to find someone strong enough to help her guild solo a floor boss, an achievement which will mark their names on the Monument of Swordsmen.

The Ace: A VR prodigy and combat genius, being the only player able to best Kirito in combat. She earned herself the honor of World's Best Warrior for Alfheim Online.
Action Girl: She's better at combat than Kirito, for starters!
A-Cup Angst: Implied in the Manga. When she, through the VR Probe, meets Suguha in the real world, she ends up getting a close-up of her breasts in real life, surprising her and causing her to look down pitiably at her own chest.
Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the game continuity, she's a lot closer to Kirito who also directly gets involved in the Mother's Rosario arc adaptation, in contrast to canon where she mainly got close to Asuna. They even end up Like Brother and Sister just like she sees Asuna as a Cool Big Sis.
Adaptational Attractiveness: While she's fairly attractive in the web novels, she's even more prettier and sexier in other adaptations. This only applies to her ALO avatar, however.
Adaptational Early Appearance:
- In the canon series, she doesn't appear until after GGO is introduced during the Phantom Bullet arc. In the video game continuity she has a brief Early-Bird Cameo as a Post-Final Boss in Hollow Fragment before appearing for real in Lost Song where the Mother's Rosario adaptation happens earlier than GGO.
- She shows up even earlier in Integral Factor, appearing as early as Floor 4 as opposed to Floor 100. She also seems to have been drawn into the game the same way as Leafa did, having her ALO avatar with its Fairy features.
Affectionate Nickname: Her older sister calls her "Yuu."
All of the Other Reindeer: Yuuki was socially ostracized due to being HIV positive. Dr. Kurahashi notes that parents requested that she be removed from school, forcing her family to move away to avoid the discrimination and harassment. In Sisters' Prayer, Yuuki notes that once her classmates found out, she no longer had any friends and ate lunch alone. In fact, it's probably not an exaggeration, to say that Asuna was more than likely the only friend she ever made who was not a medical professional or terminally ill who was willing to stick around.
Always Someone Better: Duels with Kirito twice and wins both rounds. It is debatable (in-universe even!) who is actually more skilled, as Kirito never fights her with his signature style (and Lisbeth theorizes that Kirito never fights "seriously" anymore unless lives are on the line, and thus didn't go after her the way he did with Heathcliff and Death Gun), but her reaction speed and VRMMORPG experience are significantly better than his. Kirito even stated that had she been in SAO, the system would have instead granted her the dual blades ability due to her superior reflexes. And he's right about that, at least in Integral Factor, where Yuuki is with the group since the fourth floor. According to Kayaba, she was supposed to get them instead of Kirito. The fact she didn't proves something is going wrong. Word of God states that if Kirito did fight Yuuki with two swords, and one of those swords was Excalibur, Kirito would win by dint of his superior equipment rather than his skill.
Always with You: She lives on in the OSS she gave to Asuna before she died. Her spirit even appeared to Asuna to help her against the Final Boss in Ordinal Scale.
Ambiguously Bi:
- She shares a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with Asuna in Mother's Rosario and drops several hints of it her love for Asuna being more than platonic, jokingly stating she would be up for marrying Asuna one day.
- In the gameverse continuity, she is practically a member of Kirito's Unwanted Harem, even sharing a few pillow talk scenes with him, though they view each other more Like Brother and Sister. Though she also has even more suggestive moments in Hollow Realization developing a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with fellow Genki Girl Strea and presenting a bouquet of flowers to Asuna in one event.
- Integral Factor drops the ambiguity and has her outright confirming she desires to marry a woman someday, in addition to the usual teases like wondering if she and Kirito were love rivals for Asuna’s heart, or saying she loves Lisbeth and spontaneously hugging her after the latter makes her a sword.
- In the "My Princess" event in Rising Steel, she makes a secret bet with Kirito that whoever wins the Race Unity Tournament would get to take Asuna on a date. When Asuna expresses confusion at this, saying that she would have been happy to spend time with Yuuki regardless, Yuuki responds that "A knight has to fight for the affection of her princess", naming Asuna as said Princess.
Angsty Surviving Twin: Yuuki had a twin sister, Aiko. Both girls were infected with HIV as a result of a contaminated blood transfusion, and Aiko died first. Yuuki, who was quite close to her sister, clearly misses Aiko a great deal, and ends up seeing a bit of her in her new friend, Asuna. When Yuuki dies in Asuna's arms, the last thing she sees is her sister in Asuna's place, clearly showing her undying love for them both.
Arc Hero: For the Mother's Rosario arc alongside Asuna.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: Her favorite strategy is to charge right at an enemy and fight them head on.
Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: It's more apparent in the games, however Yuuki at times can get easily sidetracked from whatever task she's performing at hand, such as chasing after a butterfly while she's on a quest to retrieve honey.
Badass Adorable:
- She's a kind and cheerful little girl, but is also the most powerful player in the game and the only person who can beat Kirito in a fair duel.
- In Lost Song and Hollow Realization, this character trait is amplified by the simple fact that she is living life to the full, no longer shackled by an impending death. She now plays and has fun just as any normal girl would, albeit she does so in the virtual world.
Best Friend: Memory Defrag indicates she has become this with Leafa (while thinking of Asuna as a surrogate sister). She and Leafa are Birds of a Feather being the two fastest players in ALO and love of rushing into the action without any planning.
Beware the Nice Ones: When she was being denied access to the Floor 27 boss, she responds by trouncing one of the grunts blocking the way.
Big Brother Worship:
- She looks up to Asuna as a role model and a surrogate sister. She evidently had this relationship with her late real twin sister as well. Particularly notable in that Yuuki is one of the few characters Asuna doesn't address using honorifics, which highlights just how close the two of them are.
- In the game continuity she has this relationship with Kirito, where she remarks she gets a feel for what it's like to have a big brother.
Big Eater: Certain gameverse instances show Yuuki has a voracious appetite, able to wolf down food at high speeds.
Birds of a Feather:
- While the Arc revolved largely around her Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with Asuna, small snippets and side-materials give her this with Kirito, due to the both of them being Master Swordsmen and contenders for World's Best Warrior. It's actually to the point that Asuna gets jealous... not sure who of though...
- In the gameverse, she has this with Strea during the events of Hollow Realization, with both of them being so upbeat and cheerful they practically rebound off each other to the point where Asuna wonders if she's actually being a burden on Yuuki, until Yuuki presents her with a bouquet of flowers Strea helped her with in order to thank Asuna for her help on a real-world test.
A Birthday, Not a Break: In the climax of Sisters' Prayer, Yuuki and Ran are forced to stop Merida from using Ran’s modified Nervegear from trying to get into SAO to help her guildmates from the Beta, with her having visited under the pretext of their birthday for the chance to do so. Merida even Lampshades this by apologizing for trying to pull her stunt on what was supposed to be an important day for the two sisters.
Blade Spam: Her Signature Move is the Mother's Rosario, which is an 11-hit Original Sword Skill.
Blood Knight: Yuuki loves a good fight and is all too eager to challenger strong players to see how she fares against them.
Bookworm: By her own admission, she loves to read. When Asuna's teacher allows her to read a short story to the class, she reads the story so enthusiastically that the entire class stayed silent for the whole reading.
Breakout Character: Yuuki is insanely popular among the fanbase, for being the only character to be a challenge to Kirito along with her eternally cheerful disposition. Fans were utterly distraught she was Killed Off for Real at the end of her arc. However, through sheer Popularity Power she was able to be spared her fate in the game adaptations. She also gets a side story titled Sisters' Prayer all to herself which covers her life before she met Asuna.
The Cameo: Briefly appears in the tail end of Ordinal Scale, as a phantasmal presence when Asuna performs Mother's Rosario against An Incarnation of the Radius.
Casting Gag: Yuuki is very similar to another one of Aoi Yūki's character, Hibiki from Symphogear. Both are energetic genki girls who are always ready for anything and both are inflicted with a condition that will soon kill them. Unfortunately, while Hibiki is eventually cured of her condition, Yuuki isn't so lucky...
Character Development: At the beginning of Sisters' Prayer, hardly as upbeat or optimistic as she is by the time of Mother's Rosario, but by the end, she's on the way to founding the Sleeping Knights.
Color Motif: Heavily associated with purple, as part of her Purple Is Powerful theme. Her in-game avatar's hair is purple and all of the outfits she wears has the color to some degree.
Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: The first female lead whose story arc has almost nothing to do with Kirito, instead revolving around Asuna. She also breaks the trend of the female character being second best to Kirito, with her proving to be stronger than Kirito straight from the start.
Dark Is Not Evil: Is an Imp and wears mostly dark colors but is perpetually cheerful.
David vs. Goliath: In Sisters' Prayer, Yuuki is this in her duel against Merida, who compared to Yuuki had more experience and better equipment, which isn't helped by Yuuki being a Reluctant Warrior at the time. However, after some encouraging words from Merida, Yuuki is able to secure a win by using the Samurai's Parry skill to send her shuriken back at her, before managing to slash Merida in a vital area while blocking an attack on her throat, sending her HP below half.
Defeat Equals Friendship: Yuuki earns the respect and friendship of everyone she crosses blades with by defeating them. Asuna, for instance, became her surrogate sister after their duel.
Delicate and Sickly: She was born HIV-positive, contracted from an infected blood infusion given to her and Aiko's mother while giving birth to them. By the time Asuna sees her physical body, it was already blind, bedridden and on the verge of death, with her consciousness hooked up onto the Medicuboid for three years.
Deuteragonist: Of the Mother's Rosario arc. In the anime, she takes over the Evolving Credits opening during the arc.
Distaff Counterpart: To Kirito. Both are VR prodigies with natural talent, are Master Swordsman who became the World's Best Warrior for a VRMMORPG and end up as rivals to a degree, as well as both of them being associated with dark colors and to top it off both of them love Asuna, though the exact nature of Yuuki's feelings are left ambiguous.
Do Not Go Gentle: Her main motivation for wanting to carve the names of the Sleeping Knights onto the Monument of Swordsmen before AIDS claims her and the rest of Sleeping Knights also pass on.
Doomed by Canon: Averted in the video game canon, as Yuuki doesn't die.
Dual Wielding: Her lack of this trope is a minor plot point; Kirito is convinced that if she'd been in SAO, she would have gotten the unique skill instead of him. Upgraded to a major plot point in Integral Factor, where she is in SAO, and Kayaba confirms that her Super-Reflexes are superior to Kirito's. Yuuki not getting the unique skill tells Kayaba that something is going wrong.
Duel Boss: After fulfilling certain conditions in Hollow Fragment, Kirito can challenge her to a non-fatal duel after beating Heathcliff. Despite the fact that she came from Alfheim Online, she instantly masters the mechanics of SAO to the point of giving Kirito a run for his money.
Early-Bird Cameo: She made her first voiced appearance in Hollow Fragment, months before the second season of the Sword Art Online anime aired.
Eating Lunch Alone: Once Yuuki's status as an HIV positive individual was revealed, she found herself doing this at school during lunch time. All of her friends abandoned her and would no longer eat with her.
Establishing Character Moment:
- Her very first appearance has her issuing a challenge to all players in ALO where she proceeds to win 77 consecutive duels (including against Kirito). There's also the fact she's been nicknamed Zekken^note"The Absolute Sword". She then fights Asuna and we get to see how she managed to beat everyone, with her showing an impossibly fast speeds in one of the most spectacular battles in the series. Then she unleashes her OSS, the 11-Hit Mother's Rosario!
- In Integral Factor, she makes her presence known by pulling a Big Damn Heroes and helping out the Player, Koharu, and Kizmel when they get attacked by Fallen Elves.
Four Is Death: Her funeral was held on 04/04/2026.
Fun Personified: Yuuki believes in living life to the fullest. Knowing how little time she has left she treats everyday like it's her last and is always out to have a blast.
The Gadfly: In the game adaptation, she enjoys playfully teasing and messing with Kirito as she loves seeing his reactions.
Genius Bruiser: Yuuki isn't just a master swordswoman, but she's very talented academically and artistically. She calls herself a bookworm, and was once commended by Asuna to be good at Japanese at school. Yuuki gets her chance to demonstrate this near the end of volume 7, reading a historical Japanese short story that is far above her grade level, which is especially noticeable given that due to her illness she hasn't been in school for at least three years and is thus academically far behind her age group.
Genki Girl: Aside from her superb combat skills, Yuuki is best known for her eternal sunny disposition, always out to live life to the fullest and have a good time.
The Gift: Yuuki is stated to be a combat genius. She's able to master techniques in one go, and even managed to develop her own 11-hit OSS on her own.
Godlike Gamer: Yuuki is probably the only character to qualify for this better than Kirito, fitting as she is his Distaff Counterpart. To date she's the only player able to best Kirito in a fair fight. Yuuki's VR talents are unparalleled as she practically lives and breathes the virtual world. She arrives in Alfheim Online and immediately wins 77 consecutive duels. She also created her own 11-hit Original Sword Skill which is stated to be a very difficult task. In the Gameverse, this translates to her becoming the Sword Goddess Gladia.
Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: In Sisters' Prayer, she briefly pondered why Kayaba would cause the SAO incident. Her mixed feelings on the matter are compounded by the fact that, though indirectly, it was thanks to him that she and Ran got to spend one last hour with their parents, and that Ran is able to be with her when she’s using the Medicuboid thanks to a modified NerveGear.
Good Counterpart: For Shouichi Shinkawa / Red-Eyed XaXa . Both are very ill in real life and wanted to prove their strength in the VR world, which gave them more opportunity than the real world. Unlike XaXa, who completely gave up on the real world ethics and became a killing machine and Serial Killer as "Death Gun", Yuuki chose to become one of the best players in Alfheim Online and lead a band of similarly terminally-ill patients as well as being one of the genuinely nicest characters in the series.
Go Out with a Smile: As she lies dying in Asuna’s arms, Yuuki dies smiling, feeling happy and fulfilled with her life.
Guardian Angel: Appears to have become this to Asuna following her death given how her spirit returns from heaven to help Asuna perform a twelve strike Mother's Rosario against the True Final Boss of Aincrad Level 100 and save a stadium of innocent SAO survivors and concertgoers, proving that love and friendship truly does transcend death.
Hair Antennae: She has a small one pointing near her headband. Ironically, she says she doesn't like bugs.
Hero of Another Story: She and the Sleeping Knights had many adventures in lots of other games before playing ALO.
Heroes Prefer Swords: Favors swords, much like Kirito. In Fatal Bullet she even picks a Photon Sword just like him.
Hidden Depths: Sisters' Prayer Implies that she has an interest in bug battles, the only reason she didn’t take part in the ones in Serene Garden being that she didn’t want to risk whatever bug she used dying.
Honorary True Companion: She doesn't officially become a member of the core SAO gang in canon, but she still became an exceptionally close friend to them, especially Asuna. Averted in the games where she's a literal True Companion.
Iaijutsu Practitioner: As a samurai in Asuka Empire, she has used skills of this nature, such as the Suminagi skill that she used to finish off Akuro-ou, the boss of the promotion quest.
I Knew There Was Something About You: Even after trying to cut all contact with Asuna so she wouldn't find out the truth about her, she had a feeling Asuna would find her in the real world, even telling the medical staff of her hospital to expect her and giving permission to inform Asuna about her situation.
Idiot Hair: Has one strand that always stick up, though she's far from an idiot, being shown to be a Genius Bruiser who is academically gifted.
Image Song: She has a total of three: "Liberty Rosario", "Sora e to Ateta Tegami" (a duet with Asuna), and "Sleepless Legend" (along with Asuna and the rest of the Sleeping Knights).
Irony: She is the strongest warrior in the game, but a bedridden, dying girl in real life.
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Assuming she does have a legitimate crush on Asuna, she does still seem to be a Shipper on Deck for her and Kirito, with her telling Asuna to keep an eye on him out of worry about his love of the Virtual World, and even saying that the two of them embody "relationship goals". It is also for this reason she tries cutting ties with Asuna after they and the Sleeping Knights achieve their goal of defeating the Floor Boss on their own, thinking Asuna would be better off not knowing of her condition and therefore not be too affected by her death.
Japanese Christian: Yuuki's mother was a Catholic, and it's heavily implied that Yuuki shares her faith. Her ALO outfit has crosses prominently on it, most noticeably with a cross at the neck of the outfit in the original light novel illustrations. She also talks about Jesus at a few points in the story. In the game continuity, her outfit in Hollow Realization has a number of crosses on it, similar to her ALO outfit.
Kill the Cutie: She was on the verge of being the fan-favorite of the series with her upbeat personality and impossible strength, but then it's revealed she's terminally ill with AIDS. She does not survive to the end of the story.
Leitmotif: "Light Your Sword", which she shares with Asuna.
Leotard of Power: A purple-black one, although it's a little hard to see under her dress.
Laser Blade: In Fatal Bullet she can wield a photon sword just like Kirito.
Lightning Bruiser: Remember how most opponents can't even react to Kirito dashing towards them before it's too late? Let's just say that Kirito can't even react to her and leave it at that.
Like Brother and Sister: In the game continuity, she develops this relationship with Kirito:
- In Hollow Realization, Yuuki loves teasing Kirito to get reactions from him much like a little sister would. One of Yuuki's pillow events even has the two of them having a tickle fight. Yuuki even half-affectionately, half-jokingly refers to him as her "big brother".
- In Fatal Bullet, Kirito piggybacks an exhausted Yuuki back home, where Yuuki remarks she now has the chance to know what it feels like to have a big brother.
Littlest Cancer Patient: Aged fifteen and terminally ill with AIDS which had already claimed all of her family. Though her time is limited, she lives life to the fullest and is an unbelievably strong person in the virtual world where no one was able to beat her. In the end her disease was the only thing allowed to claim her life.
Magically Inept Fighter: Invoked. As she explains to Asuna, and likely her previous challengers, before their duel, they are allowed to use any tools or magic at their disposal, while she'll only use her sword.
Master Swordsman: She is called "The Absolute Sword" for a very good reason; even Kirito, the World's Best Warrior of SAO, was outclassed by her in single-sword combat.
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: While it's implied that it's really her, it's not made entirely clear if her appearances after her death are really her spirit returning from Heaven to assist Asuna in various moments of need or if it's just a combination of symbolism, appearing whenever Asuna uses the Mother's Rosario skill, and Asuna's subconscious making use of her memory when in need of a good pep talk.
Meaningful Name:
- Her guild — "Sleeping Knights" may sound romantic, until one realizes that all its members are terminally ill patients with their consciousnesses kept alive by the Medicuboid while their physical bodies are sleeping, and are soon to be, figuratively, asleep for good.
- Her own name, Yuuki: is a pun on the Japanese word "Courage", quite symbolic of her resolve to optimistically live her life with what little time she has left.
- The character choice in her name also signifies that she was born when the crinum blooms, in July.
Named Weapon: Around the time she earned the Samurai rank in Asuka Empire, she was wielding a uchigatana called Suminagashi, translated to Ink Washer, that wasn't particularly rare but was easy to use.
Nice Girl: A bright and kind-hearted lass who encourages everyone around her to happily live life to the fullest, without a single spiteful or selfish bone in her body.
Not Too Dead to Save the Day: Despite her death, Yuuki's spirit appears during the final battle of the Ordinal Scale movie to help Asuna and her friends.
Odd Friendship: Integral Factor has her becoming close friends with Alice, despite the two girls being almost polar opposite in personality, with Yuuki being carefree, energetic, and casual, while Alice is stoic, serious, and professional.
Oh, Crap!: When she realizes that Merida is using Ran's NerveGear to try to get into Sword Art Online and help her guildmates, she panics.
One-Steve Limit:
- Yuuki's first name is pronounced the same way as Asuna's surname, which causes confusion when Asuna's friends refer to her as "Yuuki-san". When Yuuki jokingly suggests marrying Asuna, she suggests that Asuna should marry into her family as otherwise her name would be "Yuuki Yuuki".
- In Memory Defrag, one event had Asuna's real name being the same as her gamer name being brought up. Yuuki asks why she didn't change her name when she moved to ALO, suggesting she could have gone with her last name "Yuuki", only for Asuna to point out that would mean their names would be the same.
Online Alias: Yuuki, the same as her real given name.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She is shown to be shorter than Asuna by a good bit, is only as old as Silica, but displays her prowess as the best player in ALO.
Plucky Girl: Twenty players blocking the entrance to the boss room, with thirty more on the way? Bring it on, she says.
The Pollyanna: Despite her family being killed off one by one by AIDS until she was left to bear the pain and the stigma by herself, she remains cheerful and as energetic as an ill girl could possibly be.
Post-Final Boss: In Hollow Fragment, with her appearance likely being due to the same glitching that brought Leafa and Sinon in. She appears only if Kirito chooses to investigate the optional "strange area" after defeating Kayaba, and should you do so, she and Kirito fight a Half-Loss Duel. Defeating her will allow her to be recruited into the party on a New Game Plus. However, as this event is directly referenced in Lost Song by both of them, the fight is canon in the videogame continuity.
The Prankster: Hollow Realization adds this side to her, where she loves messing around with Kirito for her amusement, such as scaring him when he's lost in thought or tickling him when he's trying to sleep.
Pseudo-Romantic Friendship:
- Shares one with Asuna. While milder than other examples, she lampshades this when she playfully proposes marriage to Asuna. Lost Song and Hollow Realization just adds on the subtext with Asuna getting depressed when she thinks she's becoming a burden on Yuuki's happiness and capped off with Yuuki giving her a bouquet of flowers to show how grateful she is for her help.
- Memory Defrag has Leafa as Yuuki's best friend, with the two of them being the two energetic speedsters among the core group.
- In Hollow Realization she starts to build one with Strea due to their shared enthusiasm and go-lucky attitude, to the point it triggers Asuna to wonder if her own friendship is just burdening Yuuki.
- In Integral Factor, Yuuki forms one with Lisbeth, after becoming her client in making an extraordinary sword.
Purple Is Powerful: She is the best player in ALO and a large portion of her attire is purple along with her hair.
Red Baron: In ALO, she is known as Zekken, or 'Absolute Sword', due to her legendary skill as a swordswoman, which translates to, in the gameverse version of Underworld, her being Gladia, the Goddess Of Swords.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: The excitable and cheerful red to Asuna's more calmer and mature blue.
Reluctant Warrior: Ironically enough, a part of her was reluctant to play combat heavy games like Asuka Empire at first, feeling intimidated at the prospect of fighting other people as if it was real life and doing the attacking herself. Needless to say, she grows out of this by the end of Sisters' Prayer, and manages to convince Merida to not dive into SAO through a duel.
The Rival: To Kirito, or the closest he has to one, being the one Worthy Opponent Kirito can't beat and Yuuki will never let beat. This is especially prevalent in the gameverse where the two frequently duel to determine who is better.
Samurai: In Sisters' Prayer, she takes this as her Prestige Class once she gains a few levels in Asuka Empire.
Samus Is a Girl: In Season 2 Episode 18, as Liz and the others tell Asuna about Zekken, a mysterious warrior who always challenges people in a certain spot during a certain time of day. Asuna at first assumes that it's a guy, particularly as Kirito was also unable to beat him. Then in episode 19 she finds out that Zekken is actually a girl, and her image of a heavily armored man gets shattered. She also gets a little upset at Liz for not telling her Zekken was a girl and at Kirito as she suspects he lost on purpose because Zekken was a girl, despite him trying to say otherwise. She quickly learns that he was being honest when Yuuki counters her Quadruple Pain, showing just how fast her reaction speed is compared to Kirito's.
Saying Too Much:
- In Sisters' Prayer, she admits to Merida that she isn't using an Amusphere, almost spilling the beans on the Medicuboid test, which is meant to be confidential. Luckily for her, Ran lies to Merida and says that they're actually using modified NerveGears approved by their doctor.
- Downplayed, but when Asuna tells her she called her "sis" twice, she breaks down crying because she and the Sleeping Knights don't want Asuna to get to close to them because they feel it will only hurt her if she learns about how they don't have much time left.
Shameless Fanservice Girl: Downplayed, but whenever Yuuki ends up in a Fanservicey scenario, she's often depicted as being largely unbothered.
- During the second part of the "Midgard Maiden Warriors Summer" Event in Memory Defrag, where she and Leafa appear in Chainmail Bikinis, she, like Alice, is largely unbothered and even excited about getting to wear the bikini armor due to it's lightness and buffs, in contrast to Asuna and Leafa's embarrassment at it.
- In Hollow Realization when she, Kirito and Asuna find a natural hot spring while exploring, she and Asuna enter for a bath while Kirito stands guard. When Kirito panickily rushes in to warn them about a monster attack, Yuuki, asides from calling him a perv, appears largely unbothered and was more surprised than anything, even casually asking if he wanted to peep on Asuna that badly. If anything, Asuna was pissed.
- Oddly enough, she wasn’t like this when she was playing Serene Garden with Ran, not wanting to use it’s provided bathhouses out of a reluctance to get naked around strangers, even if it was just an avatar. Ran outright said she was too sensitive.
Signature Headgear: Her bandana/hair ribbon. Regardless of the VRMMO she's playing, she's always wearing some variation of it. In real life and Serene Garden, she wears a simple white hair ribbon to contrast her from her twin sister. In Asuka Empire, she wears a forehead protector common to the Ninja and Samurai classes. In ALfheim Online, she wears a red bandana with two arrows on it. Even in the game continuity, she has a different design for each game the protagonists play, with a variation of her red bandana for Hollow Realization, and three red strings as a hair accessory in Fatal Bullet.
Signature Move: The titular Mother's Rosario, an 11-hit attack developed with pure skill in technique and crystallized into a Sword Skill. She later passes it on to Asuna before dying.
Spared by the Adaptation: In the non-canon game Lost Song, Yuuki's condition improves and she says that she'll be able to stay in the long run. Presumably, this is so that Yuuki (who becomes playable in said game) won't have to be cut out altogether. This continues into its sequels where Yuuki is ready to tackle new adventures with her friends and any worries about her condition are almost nonexistent. Yuuki lampshades this by saying that up until recently, she'd been told that she only had three months to live. See Your Days Are Numbered. This leads into Last Recollection, where not only is she still alive for the Where Are They Now epilogue the Moon Goddess Lunaria account which was left unused and thus implicitly meant for Yuuki is replaced entirely by Yuuki's Sword Goddess Gladia account, a living tribute to how Yuuki is, was and always will be the greatest sword fighter in existence.
Stepford Smiler: She admits that she's not as cheerful or upbeat as she seems, and that it took her a long time to understand what her mother wanted to teach her by talking about Jesus, but believes that smiling and living life to the fullest are good things in and of themselves.
Strong and Skilled: She boasts the feat of winning 77 consecutive duels, as well as the only player to best Kirito in combat. This is attributed to her full diving 24/7, therefore having more virtual experience than anyone else (including SAO survivors). Even entering a new game, she's so familiar with the mechanics that it's second nature to her, and quickly usurps whoever previously held the title of strongest player. She has specifically been called a combat genius and can master techniques in one go. Proof of her skill comes from her developing the 11-hit Original Sword Skill Mother's Rosario.^note
Super-Reflexes: Remember how we said that Kirito has the fastest reaction speed in SAO? Yuuki's reflexes surpasses even that. Kirito even said that had she been in Aincrad, she would have been the one granted the Dual Blades skill instead.
Swapped Roles: In Memory Defrag, the "Asuna's Great Adventure" event had Asuna being turned into a kid, which leads Yuuki to take up the role of big sister, whereas that was usually Asuna's job. Yuuki finds out it's not all fun and games. Kid Asuna proves to be a handful when she wanders off to do dangerous quests on her own, forcing Yuuki to constantly watch out for her and keep her safe.
Sweet Tooth: Yuuki has a fondness for sweet food, which matches her sweet personality.
Sword and Gun: In Fatal Bullet, she wields a photon saber and a Beretta 93R machine pistol simultaneously.
Talking through Technique: She believes in facing others head on, and the fact that actions speak louder than words.
- Her quote above is what she tells Asuna when they go up against a rival guild as being an ideology she lives by.
- In Sisters' Prayer, this is how she convinces Merida not to try to re-enter SAO in an attempt to help her guildmates.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: With Asuna. She'd much rather run around outdoors swinging her sword while speaking with a very boyish mannerism, in contrast to Asuna who was raised to be elegant and ladylike.
- Also with her twin sister, Aiko. Aiko's a polite, motherly, and well mannered girl, in contrast to Yuuki's tomboyish behavior. This is even reflected in their Asuka Empire classes - Aiko plays a spell casting Miko to Yuuki's sword-wielding Samurai.
Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Kirito brings this up in Hollow Realization, noting that while Yuuki was a little tomboy she also had a girly side to her like a love of butterflies and knitting.
Too Good for This Sinful Earth: A shining beacon of courage, joy and hope too bright to remain burning in this cruel and selfish world.
Tragic AIDS Story: The Mother's Rosario arc is all about her struggle with AIDS.
V-Sign: Her signature Victory Pose, as seen here◊.
Weapon Tombstone: Her sword, adorned with her bandana, marks the spot where she met Asuna for the first time as well as where she spent her final moments in the company of Asuna, her surviving guildmates, and Kirito and Asuna's raiding party.
Wolverine Publicity: In Integral Factor, Yuuki is featured as one of the main NPCs despite this being long before her canonical appearance. She doesn't even have the excuse of being adapted into the gameverse version of the Aincrad arc like Leafa and Sinon, as she only had an Early-Bird Cameo and was introduced in Lost Song the Alfheim Online adaptation. The only reason she's in the mobile game is because of popularity.
World's Best Warrior: Of Alfheim Online; even Kirito, the World's Best Warrior of SAO, respectfully acknowledges her as such, to the point that, in the video game continuity, she is the goddess of swordsmanship.
Worthy Opponent: She and Kirito see each other as this, with no one else able to challenge either of them as much as the two of them do. They have had several duels in the game continuity with all of them being very close matches.
Your Days Are Numbered: In the gameverse continuity, despite making a near-miraculous recovery from AIDS, Yuuki herself believes that the disease is eventually going to get the last laugh. Her recovery has bought her at most two decades, which would be long enough to fall in love with someone, get married, and have kids, but not long enough for her to see her grand-children. Fatal Bullet sees her condition stabilize and she might even be cured through long term treatment. Fans are more than a bit paranoid that she could suffer a relapse.

Supporting Characters

Ryōtarō Tsuboi / Klein

Ryōtarō Tsuboi / Klein (SAO, ALO, OS, GGO)

Voiced by: Hiroaki Hirata (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English), Gabriel Ortiz (Latin American Spanish), Rafael Ordóñez Arrieta (European Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/klein_sao.png

^{Click here to see Klein's ALO avatar}

^{Click here to see Klein in Ordinal Scale}

"They say your character is built by life's challenges, so keep soldiering on young man."

Kirito's first friend and comrade in SAO. After Kayaba trapped them, he and Kirito parted ways to gather his real-world friends, in the process forming "Fuurinkazan", a guild famous for having all of its members survive SAO. Later in ALO, he joins Kirito's party as a Salamander-type swordsman.

Action Survivor: He was just an ordinary Japanese Salaryman who played video games in his free time before being trapped in SAO. Luckily, the deadly scenario he was trapped in was one that required the gamer knowledge he’s accumulated to survive.
Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed. He's not depicted as a horrible person by any means, but the Gameverse tends present Klein as a more of a desperate creep than his canon Casanova Wannabe status, such as the "alarm" he gave Leafa in Hollow Fragment^note or in Fatal Bullet where he threw a tantrum over Kirito and the Player Character getting more female attention than him, whereas in canon he's shown to have a sense of boundaries and mostly responds to Kirito's Chick Magnet status with teasing. He's also shown to be a rather bad influence on Yui, telling her things likes "boobs are something every man wants".
All Love Is Unrequited: The poor guy never manages to score the definite girl of his life. He's desperate enough to marry an NPC at least. Not even then is he successful.
Ambiguously Bi: Klein is clearly into women, trying to make a pass at any women he can and even being interested in female NPCs, something the gameverse sometimes play up to rather creepy degrees. However, the scene where he and Kirito parts ways has him tell Kirito that his real life appearance looks cuter than his original avatar, even saying that "it's his type."
Authority Equals Asskicking: As The Leader of Fuurinkazan.
Badasses Wear Bandanas: Wears a red Samurai-esque bandana.
Berserk Button: He appears to get annoyed at people giving up on their friends. When he and Mito encountered a player who fearfully abandoned his friend to a trap and was too scared about having broken their bond to go back for him, Klein tells him to get off his ass and stop feeling sorry for himself.
Beware the Silly Ones: Klein is a humorous man who is the groups bonafide Butt-Monkey no matter the situation. He's also one of the most skilled players in the series. In SAO he was comfortably among the top five best players, only being beaten by Kirito, Asuna, and Heathcliff, and in every other game, he consistently stays right around Kirito's level.
Beyond the Impossible: In Fatal Bullet, Klein fixates on a Type-B ArFa-Sys at the Governor's Mansion that he considers cute, and continually tries asking her out on a date. Despite everyone telling him her responses are limited because she's a Type-B, he insists there must be a hidden quest he can trigger if he just talks to her enough times. He's right, and she does eventually give him the location of a special buried treasure chest, much to everyone's surprise.
Big Brother Instinct: He develops a small one towards Kirito, showing it in ways such as asking Asuna to take care of him and telling him to stay alive in the game.
- When PoH starts torturing a despondent Kirito during the War of Underworld, Klein temporarily forgets his fear of the guy and immediately tries to attack him, only to be nearly killed by a Korean player.
Big Damn Heroes:
- In Unital Ring after Yui executes a mid-air Vertical to knock the Goliath Rana off the roof of the cave and starts falling to the ground, Klein shows up and catches to prevent her from potentially crashing against a rock and dying.
- In the "Aria of a Starless Night Part 1" Event in Unleash Blading, he stands up for Mito when two players harass her for being a Beta Tester, calling them out on being so quick to throw blame around when they haven't actually seen anyone die, scaring them off.
Birds of a Feather: In Accel World vs Sword Art Online, Klein immediately hits it off with Ash Roller, who is an equally flamboyant and larger than life cool-guy.
Boisterous Bruiser: Loves a good fight, and isn't afraid to yell his enthusiasm.
Bromantic Foil: Has this dynamic with Kirito. He's the closest Kirito gets to a Heterosexual Life-Partners, and his excitable, outgoing personality contrasts Kirito's stoic, introverted solo-player choice.
Bruiser with a Soft Center: Is one of the nicest guys in the series, with a really soft heart, and has cried the most out of all the characters. He is also a badass swordsman with balls of steel, and an excellent leader.
Butt-Monkey: Gets ignored by the plot and gets little respect from his friends, who constantly pick on his failed love life and attempts to get a date despite being an accomplished clearer.
Casanova Wannabe: Fancies himself as a charming lady's man, but in reality his behavior always drives girls away.
Character Exaggeration: The game adaptations crank up his hopeless romantic side and make him far more perverted, while in canon he's a lot more composed and can be badass when he chooses to.
Chivalrous Pervert: A very loyal friend and comrade, who also likes to ogle schoolgirls.
Color Motif: Always dresses in red, in both SAO and ALO.
Cool Big Bro: He tries to be this to his school-aged friends, but more often than not has his maturity and competence eclipsed by them. Still, he still comes in awfully handy at times, such as being able to drive his "little sisters" at night when they need to get to places safe and fast.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: As much of a goofy hopeless romantic Butt-Monkey as he first appears, Klein is a very formidable player, being strong enough to be on the Assault Team and leading his own guild.
Deliberate Injury Gambit: During his duel with Eugene in "Each Their Own Battles" Event in Rising Steel, he deliberately lets Eugene stab him in the stomach so he can trap him in place and deliver a fatal blow.
Digging Yourself Deeper: At the start of the Calibur arc, he mentions that their party could really use some more spellcasters, only to get reprimanded that he's not exactly swish-and-flicking, himself. He tries to defend himself as being a samurai, which prompts Asuna to point out that classic RPG samurai are Magic Knights. When he claims that he would rather give up his title as a samurai than use magic, Yui points out that ALO's element-enhanced Sword Skills are magic for magic-haters. Kirito has to dig him out with the counter of "You don't chant when you use a Sword Skill, so it doesn't count."
Dogged Nice Guy: A non-romantic example to Kirito. He keeps trying to get Kirito to join Fuurinkazan and tries to pull him out of his loner shell, but isn't as successful as Asuna. When he realizes Asuna's feelings for Kirito, he asks her to take care of him.
Early-Bird Cameo: Appears in the news report in the first minute of the first episode.
Ephebophile: Klein (24 to 26 years old), has shown by his Hot-Blooded enthusiasm for bubbly girls like Yuna the Virtual Idol in Ordinal Scale and of course Asuna (7 years his junior), shows a tendency to fall in love at the drop of a hat for cute and cuddly girls significantly younger than he is. Were they not virtual avatars and were he not such a gentlemanly Nice Guy who does not act on his desires, this would easily get him thrown in jail in real life.
Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: During the War of Underworld, when Asuna sees Vassago atop the ruin's pillar, she asks Klein if he recognizes him. He tells Asuna that he can't really tell because of the hooded poncho covering his face... Then he recognizes the poncho.
Face of a Thug: Is described as this by Kirito. The avatar he originally made for himself in Aincrad is said to be much more handesome.
The Gadfly: Whenever the opportunity presents itself he will tease Kirito about his status as a Chick Magnet. This tends to backfire on him.
The Ham Squad: His guild, Fuurinkazan, are just as hammy and boisterous as he is.
Best Friend: Is the closest Kirito gets to one prior to Eugeo, being the first and oldest friend he has from SAO who is not a girl and not in love with him.
Hero of Another Story: Klein has had his own adventures in SAO, and the story of how Furinkazan went from being a noob guild to the Action Survivor guild is one worth telling one day.
Hidden Depths: The Sword Art Offline shorts show Klein to be surprisingly skilled at life counselling.
Hot-Blooded: High energy and passion goes with being a Boisterous Bruiser.
Hypocritical Humour: At the end of Ordinal Scale, he claims that games aren't for meeting girls, even though one of his stated reasons for enjoying AR was that it gave him more chances to meet girls, and the fact that back in SAO he immediately tried getting details about Suguha when he learned Kirito had a sister, and when he formally meets Asuna while she's partying with Kirito on Floor 74, he's quick to describe himself as "24, single, and looking for a girlfriend" before Kirito cuts him off.
Iaijutsu Practitioner: Downplayed. Some Katana Sword Skills are based off Iaijutsu, so he uses them from time to time but not too often.
Innocently Insensitive: During his Discharge Party at the Dicey Cafe in Ordinal Scale, he says that games aren't for meeting girls when Liz points out that he enjoyed AR since it gave him more chances to meet girls, pissing off an already bitter Andrew since one of the things he and his wife had in common when they met was a love of gaming.
I Will Wait for You: A non-romantic example. He always holds a open hand to Kirito to join him and even when he is at his emotional nadir, Klein still was friendly to him and wanted to help him, even when it seemed Kirito might be willing to fight him.
Katanas Are Just Better: In SAO, he gained the rare ability of equipping katanas. That's why he becomes a samurai in ALO. This is justified in Hollow Fragment, where most Katana skills can inflict bleed. Unfortunately, this is Averted for the time being in Unital Ring since instead of his Katana, he instead inherited the Pursuit skill.
The Lancer: Plays this role during the Calibur arc, acting as a Hot-Blooded contrast to the level-headed Kirito.
Let's Get Dangerous!: In times of seriousness Klein drops his goofy moron act and becomes a badass force to be reckoned with.
Like Brother and Sister: When he finally gets it through his thick-skull that he does not have a snowflake's chance in hell with the beautiful girls that hang around Kirito, Klein settles for regarding them as family instead, casually having conversations about dating and seeking love-advice from them (Liz in particular) like a goofy big brother would with his close little sisters.
Manchild: He's in his twenties, but at times can act as (if not more) immaturely as the kids he hangs out with.
Martial Arts Headband: His main shtick, even in real life, is wearing one of these.
Mistaken for Pedophile: Played for Laughs in the games. In Accel World vs Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight Kirito noticed that at one point Klein appears to have a crush on the then twelve year old Idol Singer Seven, and was worried he would try to hit on other Token Mini Moes like Utai and Niko. Klein elaborates that his affection for Seven was only speaking from the point of view of a dedicated fan, and he had no interest in children whatsoever.
Morphic Resonance: Even before Kayaba reset everyone's avatars, Klein looked pretty much the same save for having longer hair than his real life appearance, and generally a little more distinguished rather than thuggish.
Nice Guy: Beneath his gruff, lecherous persona is a kind soul. In SAO, his first action post-entrapment was to find his friends and bring them under his wing.
No Poker Face: In Hollow Fragment, when the gang play Texas Holdem, Klein tries to bluff with an All-In when he only has a measly hand of a pair of 4's, which Kirito immediately picks up on and beats him to.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Unital Ring reveals that in the time between it and Calibur, he was able to max out Pursuit, a Difficult, but Awesome skill that requires a lot of effort and patience to level up, but allows you to see the footprints of players and monsters to help hunt for materials, due to a quest he received from Skuld. This unfortunately bites him in the ass however when the transfer occurs, since he instead inherited Pursuit instead of his Katana skill, forcing him into the role of Non-Action Guy when he initially met up with Agil. It did however help the two in meeting up with Kirito and the others just in time to save Yui from potentially falling to her death.
One of the Kids: He's in his twenties, yet he gets along well with all of the younger characters, acting just as goofy and immature.
Online Alias: Klein.
Overshadowed by Awesome: Klein is one of the top players in SAO, and his guild managed to survive SAO unscathed. Not even the Knights of Blood can boast of a zero mortality rate. Not to mention that his Katana extra skill is considered incredibly rare due to having unclear conditions to unlock. He'd be The Hero in any other setting but for the fact that among his friends are the Dual Wielding "Black Swordsman" and the "Lighting Flash" lady warrior in white. He gets a chance to shine in the Calibur arc, where he proves to have some damn big brass balls, and also in Ordinal Scale where his guild defeats several special enemies.
Plucky Comic Relief: Klein largely serves this role, providing some lighthearted humor during tense times.
Right for the Wrong Reasons:
- In Calibur, he insists on saving Freyja even though everyone else is sure it's Schmuck Bait. This decision saves the team's ass, but not without some Brain Bleach due to Freyja's true identity as Thor.
- In Unital Ring, he suggests that group gets by Mutasina's "Nurse of the Accursed" if afflicted by simply ignoring the choking sensation due to it not being real, which is shot down by Kirito due to knowing just how bad the spell really is. In the actual battle, his seemingly impossible plan does see some use, with Kirito and Asuna powering the activation with Heroic Willpower to launch an attack Mutasina, and Yui resisting the effects via so she can face Mutasina personally.
Real Name as an Alias: His real name of Tsuboi. His character name is Klein referencing a Klein Bottle. In Japanese, this would be pronounced as Kurain no Tsuboi
Rule of Symbolism: Just like Kirito, Asuna and the latter's best friend Mito, the first monster that Klein slays onscreen, A Wild Boar, is reflective of his personality; Crude, boisterous and crass on the outside, yet headstrong, determined and nutrturing on the inside.
Samurai: Designs his SAO and ALO characters around this class even though SAO and ALO are classless, and attempts to roleplay as a samurai too. He has the katana, the bandana, and follows Bushido (or rather, the theme park version of it). Even when he plays GGO, he has a preference for Japanese-made weapons, specifically the Howa Type 64 battle rifle listed below.
Shipper on Deck: Before going after Corvatz and his group, he stops Asuna and asks her to take care of Kirito, quickly seeing that there's something there.
Spider-Sense: Like Kirito, he possesses the hypothetical skill, Hypersense.
Spirited Competitor: He won't go around picking fights, but he isn't afraid to show off his enthusiasm.
Suicide Attack: During his duel with Eugene in the "Each Their Own Battles" event in Rising Steel, Klein, finding himself outmatched by the Salamander General, opts to let himself get stabbed and trap the general in place, allowing him to deliver a fatal blow.
Third Wheel: Klein often feels this way being the only guy among Kirito's Unwanted Harem, watching all the girls fawn over him while he gets no love.
Throw the Dog a Bone: He gets little screen time in the main series and is often the butt of jokes, but in the Ordinal Scale film he plays a major role and scores several awesome moments alongside his guild.
Token Adult: He's in his twenties, and after the Fairy Dance arc is almost always part of Kirito's circle of friends.
Took a Level in Badass: He starts off a complete and total noob who had trouble with the starter enemies, to one of the best players in SAO by the end, and he leads his own guild which had nobody die in it. Not even the Knights of the Blood Oath can boast that!
Vitriolic Best Buds: While he and Kirito usually get along, Klein has a tendency to get on Kirito's nerves, usually in relation to girls, which leads to Kirito hitting him. It is worth noting is Kirito is typically the one on the receiving end when he's with any other character, but with Klein it's the inverse.
You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Gives one to Mito in Unleash Blading when she expresses guilt over her role as a Beta-Tester who hogged farming spots, causing other players to fall behind.

Andrew Gilbert Mills / Agil

Andrew Gilbert Mills / Agil (SAO, ALO, OS)

Voiced by: Hiroki Yasumoto (Japanese), Patrick Seitz (English), Óscar Rangel (Latin American Spanish), Rafael Ordóñez Arrieta (European Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/agil_sao.png

^{Click here to see Agil's ALO avatar}

^{Click here to see Agil in Ordinal Scale}

"Buy cheap and sell cheap. That's my motto."

An ax wielding merchant who runs a shop in SAO while his real-world wife runs Dicey Café, his real life one. In ALO, he reprises his SAO job as a Gnome.

Accidental Murder: After Unital Ring started, he and Klein were ambushed by the three P Kers and Agil, forgetting that they were outside the grace period, accidentally used an AoE axe skill and took out all three of them at once, much to his annoyance since he would have rather just chased them off.
Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: His store's MO is to buy cheap and sell expensively. Turns out he uses his profit to support lower-level players and a local church.
Anime Accent Absence: He's African American, yet he speaks perfect Japanese. Though unlike the rest of the characters, he's the only one who speaks perfect English too, while the rest of the characters retain a Japanese accent when speaking English words.
Armor Is Useless: Downplayed. In the early floors of SAO, he mainly wore leather armor despite being one of the Clearing Force's tanks, yet he was still able to perform an effective job, even leading a group of tank players himself. He does adopt metal armor as time goes on, but it's usually light metal armor as opposed to full-on suits that cover the entire body like Liten's.
Bald Head of Toughness: In SAO he's tall, bald, and has a goatee. He's one of Kirito's trusted friends and serves as the team's The Big Guy, with a preference for two-handed axes in combat. In terms of strength and durability, he's a Mighty Glacier, though it's somewhat downplayed because his speed only seems slow relative to several of his teammates who are Lightning Bruisers.
The Bartender: His job in real life is running a bar. He also fits the adviser part of the role both in the game and in real life, by giving advice and operating the Good Guybar.
Big Damn Heroes: In Unital Ring he helps Klein prevent Yui from potentially falling to her death, wrapping a rope around Klein's ankle so he can jump down to catch and keeping hold of the rope for as long as it's durability lasts.
The Big Guy: He's the group's only dedicated Tank player, and he swings around an axe that's as tall as he is.
Birds of a Feather: He's this with his wife, Trish. When he opened his cafe she was one of his regulars, and the two bonded over being foreigners living in Japan and sharing similar interests, such as a love of gaming.
Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Agil is the group's large, tanky Mighty Glacier who wields a large battle-axe. As far as "brutish" goes however, Agil's a Gentle Giant who at worst was a bit of a conman back in SAO.
Cool Big Bro: While his closest friendship is with Kirito, Agil is by proxy the caring big-brother to ''his' friends, seeing them also as beloved comrades in arms who have bled together in battle. He regularly holds celebrations on-the-house for his "little brothers and sisters", with the caveat that anyone who isn't Klein only gets to drink orange/apple juice, being underaged and all.
An Entrepreneur Is You: In SAO, he runs a shop on the 50th floor. 2/5 of his 10 Skills are for appraisal and negotiations on pricing items.
Friendly Shopkeeper: Agil is a friend of Kirito's who runs a store. While his goods tend to be on the expensive side, he uses his earnings to help lower-level players survive the Death Game and support a local church. He also defends the beta testers when they're used as The Scapegoat and gives Kirito a place to stay.
Gatling Good: In Fatal Bullet, he's one of two heavy weapons specialists among the cast, the other being gameverse original character Strea, included in the game's launch, wielding a gatling gun as a primary weapon, and a rocket launcher as a backup.
Genius Bruiser: Agil is the group's tank with a large axe. However, he's also among the calmer and more level-headed members of the group, and his IRL experience as a bartender has given him a good deal of business savvy that he used to run a successful shop when not fighting on the frontlines back in SAO.
Gentle Giant: Despite how tall and muscular he is, he's still one of Kirito's friends and an overall Nice Guy.
Good-Guy Bar: He runs one in both the virtual and real worlds, and in both cases Kirito and his friends hang out there often.
Happily Married: In the real world. When he was trapped in SAO, his wife singlehandedly kept his bar running and waited for him to come back, so they could pick up where they left off. He did, and they did.
Hidden Heart of Gold: He gives off the image of being a greedy merchant, but in reality, he donates his profits to lower-level players. He's quite surprised when Kirito reveals he knew that.
Intergenerational Friendship: Is old enough to be married, yet retains a close friendship with Kirito who is only in his teens.
Ironic Echo: In "The Day After" when Kirito opts out of another run at Wadjet the Flaming to check out the outer wall of Floor 27, where Sachi and the Moonlit Black Cats died, Agil says he'll give him a "800 word report" on how good the loot Wadjet drops is, a jab back to a quip he made at Agil in response to him wanting some of the S-Class Food Kirito found after Asuna offers to cook it.
Large and in Charge: In the early days of SAO, he was the de-facto leader of a group of tank players who fought on the fronts lines separate from the Aincrad Liberation Squad and Dragon Knights Brigade, and he was the biggest out of any of them.
Let Me Get This Straight...: He more or less summarizes Kibaou's grievances with the beta testers as being over monopolizing resources in a manner similar to this trope, before following up with the fact that because of the beta testers, the rest of the players have access to the most important commodity of all- information:
"If I have this right, Kibaou, you're claiming that many newbies died because the former beta testers didn't help them, and therefore they should apologize and pay reparations? Is this correct?"
Mighty Glacier: Downplayed. While very strong and not especially slow, when he fights alongside Kirito's party he gives the impression of being one likely due to the fact several of his teammates are Lightning Bruisers.
Nice Guy: You can never tell from his shop's seemingly unfair trading policies, but Agil is a loving husband and player who spent most of his fortune helping newbies.
No Sympathy: He's rather pissed that Klein wasted the ticket he offered him for Yuna's concert and says he's gonna charge his hospital discharge party on him to make up for the cost, never mind the fact that the reason Klein couldn't attend the concert was because he was assaulted and sent to the hospital.
Occidental Otaku: His parents were this, leading to them living in Japan and him being born there.
Online Alias: Agil, taken from the first letter in his given name and the first three letters of his middle name.
Our Gnomes Are Weirder: Is a Gnome in ALO, but doesn't appear to resemble anything like the traditional Gnome. He's human height, has no beard, and is naturally very strong. The fact he wields an axe makes him seem more like a dwarf then anything else.
Out of Focus: Agil is notably absent for the majority of the Phantom Bullet and Calibur arc, when all of Kirito's other friends are present, with the explanation being he needed to take care of his shop.
Real Men Wear Pink: He was one of the few players back in SAO to actually have a cooking skill back, albeit unmastered unlike Asuna. And as an IRL cafe owner, he knows how to cook.
Real Name as an Alias: Andrew Gilbert Mills, or Agil.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives a minor one to Kibaou when the latter goes into a rant against beta testers, showing him that the free manual handed out to people was written by the same people Kibaou accused of being selfish cheaters.
Scary Black Man: Subverted — as intimidating as he looks, he is actually one of the kindest senior players in SAO.
Spotting the Thread: He's the first to realize that it's odd that the Raid Party went from fighting a Lord^note Illfang the Kobold Lord to a General and Colonel^note Baran and Nato, both of which rank lower politically speaking. Cue Asterius the Taurus King walking in.
Straight Man: Serves as this for Klein, being the more rational voice of reason to Klein's wacky Plucky Comic Relief.
Token Minority: He's the only one of Kirito's close SAO friends who isn't a native of Japan.
Vitriolic Best Buds:
- With Kirito. They occasionally playfully bicker, but both have a higher opinion of the other than they let on.
- Also with Klein, who he often has to act as a Straight Man for in regards to his Casanova Wannabe antics.

Keiko Ayano / Silica

Keiko Ayano / Silica (SAO, ALO, OS, GGO, UR) / Wind Goddess Aeria (UW)

Voiced by: Rina Hidaka (Japanese), Christine Marie Cabanos (English), Wendolyne "Wendy" Malvárez (Latin American Spanish), Silvia Cabrera (European Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/silica_3.png

^{Click here to see Silica's ALO avatar}

^{Click here to see Silica's Ordinal Scale avatar}

^{Click here to see Silica's GGO avatar}

"Pina, I'll be sure to tell you lots and lots of stories. About my amazing adventure today and about the one day in my life that I had a big brother."

A young dagger wielder who befriends Kirito. She was able to befriend an NPC dragon that became her familiar, earning her the title of "Beast Tamer". She later joins ALO as a Cait Sith beast tamer.

A-Cup Angst:
- Shows hints of this in regards to Suguha's bust in the Extra Edition episode.
- Played straight in the games where Silica is constantly shown to be sensitive to remarks about the size of her bust.
- In Hollow Fragment, one event had her and Kirito experiencing a status debuff that changed parts of their avatar to out of proportion. For Silica, it was her bust that increased in size and she's secretly delighted, while also trying to hide this fact from Kirito.
- In Lost Song, she even tries to ask Strea for advice on how to increase the size of her bust.
Achievement In Ignorance: She has no idea how she initially acquired Pina as a familiar, as all she did was feed the feathered-dragon some peanuts and it started accompanying her everywhere.
Adaptational Badass: While she was much too weak to be part of the Assault Team in canon, in the game adaptation she can accompany Kirito to fight against bosses and can actually be very useful.
Adaptational Early Appearance: In canon, aside from an Early-Bird Cameo, she doesn't appear until two years after the launch of SAO. While in Integral Factor she's first seen on Floor 8, prior to her meeting Kirito.
Adaptational Wimp: In the light novel, she is among the highest level players outside of the Aincrad frontline^note and capable of going solo in a dungeon. The only reason she needed Kirito's help was because she got lost in the Forest of Wandering for hours after the completion of a raid, so she was tired and out of crystals. Her major appearance in the anime's first season, on the other hand, makes it look like her only ability is Pina and that she is helpless without the dragon. This trope is zigZagged during the event where she was constricted by the tentacled plant monster on the way to rescuing Pina. in the novel, she swung her dagger wildly in front of her, activating a Sword Skill and leaving herself wide open. In the anime, she was ambushed by a constricting attack that even Kirito didn't see coming.
Arc Hero: Alicization Lycoris give her a special after story DLC arc named Blue Eyed Demon that would have her as The Protagonist with Kirito as the Deuteragonist instead, with the story have them tried to discover a portal to another world that somehow connected to the already shut down SAO server.
Ascended Extra:
- The video games do this for her during the Aincrad arc, with her being sifted from reoccurring character to main cast.
- She also becomes one of the co-leads in the "Girls' Ops" spin-off series. In fact, she is the center of the cover for the first three volumes.
Awesomeness by Analysis: She's the one to realize how Gwen's Anti-Magic ability is some manner of Original Sword Skill, which allows the group to turn the tides on her.
The Baby of the Bunch: Silica is doted on and protected by every member of the Heroes of Aincrad like a little sister, by Kirito, Asuna, and Lisbeth in particular, due to her meek and vulnerable personality. Even Yui, who is ostensibly her junior, is braver and more assertive than she is. Silica for her part often feels guilty about this; in particular during the "Ordinal Scale" Motion Picture, her cowardice during a key battle causes Asuna, to shield her from the blow of a resurrected Aincrad boss, was robbed of her 2 years of Memories spent in Aincrad.
Badass Adorable: Yes, she's cute as a button, but she's still a competent player for someone as young as her.
Badass Bookworm: Alicization Lycoris showed that Silica is surprisingly intelligent and had loves for reading books, as she would frequently spent her times reading books about Underworld histories inside Cardinal library, pretty much make sense since she came from a family of chemist. This adds up to the fact she choose a high ranking account Sage that focus on intelligence and is adept at using high ranking sacred arts that could rival Alice and Selka abilities on high speed chanting and their abilities to use other versions of the spells.
The Beastmaster: Her skills are good enough that she can even befriend non-hostile animal mobs like deer.
Beware the Nice Ones: Played for Laughs in Girls Ops. When Rika and Keiko are discussing the Angel's Whisper Quest, the former picks up on Keiko mentioning she already contacted Kazuto asking about it and claims that she asked under the excuse that it would have probably been too difficult on their own. Liz mentally notes that she's rather devious.
Bilingual Bonus: Her real given name is Keiko which is Japanese for silicon. This is also what she based her gamer name on.
Breakout Character: Silica was a fairly minor character in the Aincrad arc, but was so popular she was promoted to main cast post-Fairy Dance. She along with the other SAO girls feature heavily in merchandising, and she even goes on to star as co-lead of the Girls Ops spin-off alongside Lisbeth and Leafa.
Butt-Monkey: Silica often finds herself in embarrassing situations either due to her nature as a Cute Clumsy Girl or just plain bad luck.
- In her first appearance alone she got her pet killed, nearly answered the door to Kirito in her underwear, and got caught by tentacle monsters far below her level twice.
- In the Gameverse, she ends up getting assaulted by tentacle monsters or being reminded of lack of assets and in having animal mobs attack her and nearly damage her clothes. Her first scene in Millennium Twilight had her running away from mobs by hiding in a barrel...and then getting stuck and needing help to get out.
- The character bio of [Relaxing on the Waters] Silica in Rising Steel has her happening upon a lake in the forest Asuna told her about, with her deciding to dip her toes in and relax. Deciding to play a prank on Pina, she tries kicking some water at her only to either end up splashing herself or falling in.
Casting Gag:
- Rina Hidaka is another Token Mini-Moe in a virtual reality setting. In fact this was alluded to in Accel World VS Sword Art Online.
- Silica constantly getting subjected to Naughty Tentacles gets a great deal more ironic when one remembers Christine Marie Cabanos was the voice of Squid Girl.
- Silica is best known as the girl with a Feathered Dragon as a pet. Rina Hidaka ended up voicing a little girl with feathered wings serving as the pet of The Protagonist in The Rising of the Shield Hero.
Cat Girl: A Cait-Sith beast tamer in ALO.
Clingy Jealous Girl: She makes lots of subtle attempts to spend time, get closer, or be affectionate towards Kirito on the hopes that she can win him over.
Clothing Damage:
- Happens in Hollow Fragment, where a really weird scene has Silica trapped by a monster with Naughty Tentacles that also exudes slime that melts armor. Kirito has to free Silica from the monster while trying not to look at her.
- Also happens in the first volume of Girls' Ops when the party has to fight a hoard of slimes.
Color Motif: Averted. She is notably the only one of the main cast who doesn't have one. For her main outfits, she has been variably given Yellow, Red, and Blue without any specific fixed color. When she plays GGO in Episode 1 of Alicization she dons green combat gear, while in Hollow Realization and Alicization Lycoris respectively, she wears orange and purple outfits. She also lacks any exotic hair color, being a plain brunette, with none of her outfits emphasizing a brown coloration.
Cool Big Sis: While she's usually on the receiving end, she does become one to Yui, especially in the game adaptation. When Kirito and Asuna aren't around, Silica is the one most likely of playing with Yui.
Crazy-Prepared: After an encounter with equipment destroying slimes in Girls' Ops Volume 1, Silica started investing in sewing and carries a needle and thread with her everywhere, which comes in handy five volumes later when Leafa gets her clothes damaged by a razor wire trap.
Crush Blush: In her debut episode, her face keeps flushing red when she's around Kirito, with her trying to dismiss it as the room being hot.
Cute, but Cacophonic: Silica loves to sing the songs of the virtual idol Yuna in the Ordinal Scale film; not that she's very competent at it, but hey points for effort.
Cute Clumsy Girl: It comes with being an adorable Butt-Monkey. Silica often finds herself as a screw-up much to her embarrassment.
The Cutie: In a cast already full of cute girls, Silica is the youngest and most endearing out of all of them, who everyone (In-Universe and Out) dotes on like a little sister.
A Day in the Limelight:
- Takes a central role in Chapters 4 and 6 of Unital Ring, with both chapters being from her perspective, the former delving a bit about her life as an SAO Survivor, and the latter having her accept a challenge from Yzelma, the leader of the Bashin tribesman they met, in order to get armour and accompany them to investigate a mysterious shooting star (actually Kirito and Asuna's log cabin).
- Alongside Sinon, this occurs once again in Volume 26 where, while Kirito, Asuna and Alice are in Underworld, the rest of the group are searching for a new ore source which culminates in a battle with a swarm of giant green wasp monsters.
Decoy Protagonist: Played With. In Girls Ops, it initially seems like she'll be the main character since the first chapter opens with her waking up from a dream where she's saved by Kirito and she's then called by Liz to take part in a quest. From then on, the story largely follows her perspective until we're introduced to Kuro, a fellow SAO Survivor who later uses her original Avatar Lux and whose personal conflicts are the driving force of the plot. Despite this however, Lux herself is something of a Supporting Protagonist, with Silica and the other girls getting more focus in spite of her greater importance to the story.
Demoted to Extra: Only for the Aincrad arc. In the light novels Silica is a supporting character who had multiple stories and run-ins with Kirito, while in the anime she only has one episode focusing on her.
Devious Daggers: A tiny character that uses daggers, which she first picked due to feeling their light weight would work best for her. In SAO, she is seen using a "Shadow Dagger" before replacing it with an "Ebon Dagger" received from Kirito.
Dragon Tamer:
- In Both SAO and ALO she works with dragons.
- Befriends a Feathery Dragon she names Pina.
Dude Magnet: She gets a lot of party member invites from guys in Aincrad. The narration explicitly calls them "suitors." In Hollow Fragment she reveals she's also gotten numerous in-game marriage proposals before.
Early-Bird Cameo: Silica had a very brief cameo during episode 1 with the crowd of players listening to Kayaba's announcement.
Everyone's Baby Sister: All of the SAO main cast dote on Silica like a little sister, especially Kirito who has stated she reminds him of Suguha.
Famed In-Story: She's a celebrity in Aincrad for three reasons: 1) She's a real girl. 2) She's an upper middle level player. 3) She owns a Feather Dragon, an exceedingly rare creature.
Fluffy Tamer: In Unital Ring after taking out the PKers that tried attacking the cabin, Silica is quick to do an impromptu taming of the Thornspike Cave Bear, a high level monster that was able to kill a group of eight players with tanks at the front with shields raised. And she succeeds, thanks to all the cooked frog meat Kirito used to lure it out to begin with and some butter and honey offered by Sinon the Patter leader respectively. She names it Misha.
Friend to All Living Things: As a Beast Tamer, Silica has an affinity for animals and, especially if she plans on taming them in the future, would rather avoid letting them die or get killed, as shown by the Thornspike Cave Bear Kirito lures out to attack 's PK group and distract them, which they planned on having her tame later.
A Girl and Her X: With Pina, her Feathered Little Dragon who's always by her side.
Girlish Pigtails: Signifying her youth and immaturity. They also add to her cuteness.
Guile Hero: During the fight with giant green wasp queen in Unital Ring, after Needy manages to propel himself off Misha and knock it back down, Silica comes up with the idea to quickly finish it off by having her, Lis, Agil, Leafa and Klein surround it, raise up their weapons as if to swing down, and then switching them for the powerful but absurdly heavy weapons they inherited from ALO, which then are forcibly swung down and impact the wasp queen at the same time, killing it.
The Heart: She is definitely the moral center of the group, and especially in Girls' Ops. She is the one who insights Kuro/Hiyori's inner anguish and convinces Liz and Leafa to help her. She also takes the lead in providing Lux/Hiyori with emotional support.
Height Angst: Not so much her height itself, but more wanting to grow up. Everyone treats Silica like their kid sister, and at times she gets fed up of this. It's revealed in Memory Defrag that when she first started playing SAO she actually made a mature looking avatar, but was disappointed when it got altered to her young real life appearance.
Heroic BSoD: She clearly has one after Pina pulls a Heroic Sacrifice.
Hollywood Tone-Deaf: She is certainly an "enthusiastic" fan of the virtual idol Yuna in the Ordinal Scale motion picture, but can't hold a note to save her life, as shown in her adorably-hilarious attempts to imitate Yuna's singing when put on the spot by Liz to do so.
Hopeless Suitor: For Kirito. The first time she met him, he was still too shaken over Sachi's death to think about romance. By the time they meet up again, he's in a relationship with Asuna. She still harbors feelings for him years later and still keen on getting close to him, despite her feeling guilt on disrupting his relationship with Asuna.
Image Song: She has a total of four. "☆Lovely Super Idol☆", "Party-go-round (Silica & Lisbeth), "Sing All Overtures" (which is sung by Kirito, Asuna, Yui, Leafa, Lisbeth and herself), "Memorial Calibur" (which is sung by Leafa, Yui, Lisbeth and herself).
It's All My Fault: In Ordinal Scale, she blames herself for Asuna shielding her from a boss and losing her memories of Aincrad. She apologizes to Asuna in the climax, but Asuna doesn't blame her.
Just a Kid: Others keep treating her this way, much to her annoyance. She's also particularly fed up with how she looks so young and wishes more than anything to grow up quicker.
Kid Sidekick: She's the only one of Kirito's companions who could pass off as a kid, being at the meager age of thirteen when they first meet.
Know When to Fold 'Em: In the manga adaptation of Mother's Rosary, she knows she's outclassed against Yuuki after seeing Leafa lose easily, and so doesn't even try to fight her.
Like Brother and Sister: Nearly all of the main cast see Silica like a little sister, but special mention goes to Kirito. Both parties have openly thought of each other as a brother and sister, with Kirito actually coming to Silica's rescue because she reminded him of his real sister, Suguha. While Silica recollected that being with Kirito finally allowed her the experience of having an older brother.
The Load:
- Her main role in the Ordinal Scale film consisted of running away from a boss and getting knocked on her back by Eiji which forced Asuna to take the blow for her and loses her memories of Aincrad to show off the villain's plans.
- Averted in the Girls' Ops spinoff, where she shows a good deal of competence in battle, displaying good teamwork with the other girls and holding her own in PVP combat.
Luminescent Blush: Fairly often around Kirito due to her Precocious Crush.
Meaningful Name: Her avatar name comes from the fourteenth element Silicon. The bauble-like hair bands represent Oxygen (as in silicon dioxide a.k.a. silica). Why? Her birthdate is October 4th (10/4; since 104 was Rutherfordium, her father added 10 and 4 to get 14: Silicon), and her real name comes from keiso, the Japanese word for Silicon. Kirito figured all that out from the simple hint that "My name comes after Alumi, and before Rin." Silica was shocked.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: A variant. Apparently Keiko's friends, parents and counsellors are baffled and even concerned by her ongoing love of VR games despite her two year entrapment in SAO, believing the experience should have given her a vehement hatred of them, a sentiment a number of SAO survivors have and sworn off VR games for good as a result. It's to the point where, when Keiko meets up with a old friend from grade school and ALO was brought, she bluntly stated that "something's wrong with you, Keiko" in concern. For her part, Keiko realizes that they're concerned but feels that trying to explain would just make the gap between them worse, and often gets annoyed about being pestered about it, to point that in "A Spot of Sunshine in the Winter" side story, she got into an argument with her parents over going to a family celebration due to the likelihood of her cousins asking insensitive questions about it.
Named Weapon: Her dagger, or at the one she wields by the time of Unital Ring, is called Issreidr.
Nice Girl: A kind young lass, whom in spite of her (comparative) weakness and cowardice next to the other heroes of Aincrad, always steps up to take responsibility and stands by her friends when the chips are down.
Older Than They Look: Silica is frequently mistaken for a kid, even though she's already in her teens. She's fifteen by the time of SAO II yet still retains a very youthful appearance.
Online Alias: Silica.
Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Silica lets slip a lot of things that end up embarrassing herself such as the feelings she has for Kirito.
Precocious Crush: On Kirito, who's two years her senior. At the end of the Alicization arc, she took advantage of Kirito's gratitude by hugging him, only to end up getting her tail grabbed by Lisbeth for it.
Plucky Girl: After Pina's temporary death, Silica was distraught but never gave up hope that she could save her dragon.
Red Baron: In SAO, she is known as "Dragon Master."
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Averted. Her online avatar sports red eyes, but she is a kind soul.
Rescue Romance: Kirito saves her after Pina performs a Heroic Sacrifice, helps her get the resurrection item, and protects her from Titan's Hand. This prompts her attraction to him.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: She ditches Titan's Hand when she's first introduced because they hogged items.
Secret Test of Character: Her bond with Pina is tested out in Hollow Fragment, where she's offered the chance to get a stronger dragon if she were to sacrifice Pina. Silica refuses and in the process reveals her absolute devotion to Pina, with the quest rewarding her by making Pina stronger.
Sexy Backless Outfit: Dons a backless swimsuit in Volume 2 of Girls Ops, Ashley noting that it was chosen so that the lack of exposure on the front would emphasize her backside.
She Cleans Up Nicely: In the rare times she lets her hair down, she looks surprisingly mature compared to when she has it in pigtails.
Shrinking Violet: She's easily embarrassed and flustered, especially in a romantic situation.
Shut Up, Hannibal!: A few times in Girls' Ops.
- When Gwen says she'll let them go and stop harassing them if they simply cut ties with Lux, stating it's the smart move, she counters the point and says she's the one at a disadvantage, prompting to Gwen to try attacking her out of spite.
- She has none of Granze's crap, outright refusing her others every time she tries making them and takes any chance to call her out on her It's All About Me attitude.
Small Girl, Big Gun: In the first anime episode of Alicization, when the whole cast has converted to GGO, she's seen firing a giant turret machine gun on top of a Humvee. And she seems to be having a blast while firing it.
Supporting Protagonist: Her introduction arc in Aincrad volume 2 is written from her perspective, but Kirito takes the lead narrative-wise.
Thinking Out Loud: Has a tendency to mumble her thoughts aloud, leading to others accidentally overhearing snippets of (at times embarrassing) thoughts.
Token Mini-Moe: She's one of the youngest characters in both SAO and ALO, as well as the youngest in Kirito's party, being only at the tender age of twelve at the start of SAO. She's also huggable cute and easily flustered.
Weak, but Skilled: While not as prominent as her skills of being The Beastmaster, that doesn't change that Silica is a very skilled dagger user. In Unital Ring, she's challenged by the Bashin leader Yzelma to cut a log thrown at her for the right for her, Liz and Yui to join their hunting party and to borrow some gear. To accomplish this, she cuts it into five pieces with the Dagger skill "Fad Edge", which is normally Powerful But Inacurate, but was made more effective by Silica with some practice.
Young Entrepreneur: In Hollow Realization, she eventually follows in Lisbeth's footsteps and opens a meat bun shop, building it from the ground up with input from Lisbeth and Kirito.
You Remind Me of X: The reason Kirito saved Silica the first time was because she reminded him of his real sister Suguha.

Pina

Voiced by: Shiori Izawa (Japanese), Cassandra Lee Morris (English)

Pina's Feathered Little Dragon Familiar, and her one constant companion throughout SAO.

Big Damn Heroes: When the girls' barrage of Einherjhar Kirito leave him with a sliver of HP remaining, which he uses to try and make one final strike on them, Pina hits him one last time to get rid of the rest of his HP, scoring a win for the group.
Feathered Dragons: Pina is a blue Shoulder-Sized Dragon whose species is literally dubbed "Feathered Little Dragon" due to its birdlike wings.
Grow Beyond Their Programming: Familiar algorithms do not provide the option for familiars to physically defend their masters. Pina took a hit for Silica because she wanted to.
Head Pet: Tends to rest of Silica's head.
Heroic Sacrifice: Does this in Silica's first appearance when she's cornered by Drunken Apes and about to be killed. She gets better.
Intellectual Animal: In Memory Defrag, one character story had Silica becoming Thumbelina where she's shrunken down and while in this state she can understand Pina, who reveals she can always understand Silica just fine.
Jealous Pet: One event in Hollow Fragment has her getting annoyed that Silica's paying more attention to Kirito than her when they're hanging out together. This leads to her angrily flapping her wings in a bid for attention, threatening to flip Silica's skirt.
Living Emotional Crutch: Pina has useful abilities like detecting monsters or restoring HP, but her greatest value to Silica is as a friend.
Loyal Animal Companion: Is this to Silica, displaying more loyalty than what is normal for a tamed Familiar.
Making a Splash:
- Pina has many water related abilities, such as being able to fire bubbles to confuse enemies and can swallow up water to fire it at others.
- In Rising Steel, Silica has two 4-star units based on her ALO avatar that operate as Water Units, both of which utilize Pina.
The Medic: Pina has access to a breath move that allows her to restore the HP of any player she breaths on.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Like with her owner, this is largely Subverted. Pina may possess red eyes, but her main asset in combat is as The Medic and it's most offensive ability is shooting bubbles to inflict confusion.
Replacement Goldfish: Silica named Pina after her real life cat, not knowing at the time if she could ever get to see the original Pina again. Once she's freed from SAO, Silica desires to have both Pinas meet each other one day.
Shoulder-Sized Dragon: Pina sometimes perches on Silica's shoulder.
Trademark Favourite Food: Peanuts, which Silica fed to her to tame her.
Undying Loyalty: To Silica. Despite, according to Yui, possessing greater free will than normal Familiars, she sticks by Silica's side and even takes a blow meant for her.
Uniqueness Value: Yui states that, for some reason, Pina possesses a more complex mind structure than most other Familiars, giving her a great deal more self-awareness, intelligence, and learning capabilities. It also grants her a semblance of free will, Taking the Bullet for Silica despite Familiars not being capable of it by design and being able to rest

Rika Shinozaki / Lisbeth

Rika Shinozaki / Lisbeth (SAO, ALO, OS, GGO, UR) / Flame Goddess Ignia (UW)

Voiced by: Ayahi Takagaki (Japanese), Sarah Anne Williams (English), Jocelyn Robles (Latin American Spanish), Rosa López (European Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lisbeth_sao_6.png

^{Click here to see Lisbeth's ALO avatar}

^{Click here to see Lisbeth's Ordinal Scale avatar}

^{Click here to see Lisbeth's GGO avatar}

"If your weapons or armor ever need repairs, you know where to go. The Lisbeth Smith Shop awaits your next visit!"

A blacksmith and friend of Asuna. She helped forge both her and Kirito's weapons, while in battle she's a mace wielder. In ALO she joins as a Leprechaun.

Achievement In Ignorance: It's her absolute faith in Adie's pride as a blacksmith and her willingness to defend her in the face of Lux's correct accusation that she's The Mole that gets Adie to make Heel–Face Turn and turn on Granze for real.
Armor Is Useless: Subverted in Alfheim Online. As shown in Girls' Ops, her first outfit lacked any armor, bearing a close resemblance to Leafa's gear. However, after it gets destroyed by slimes, she gets a new set from Ashley that has a chestplate and bracers like her old SAO Avatar, where she played this straight, and she also takes to using a shield.
Adaptational Badass: The game adaptation makes her much stronger around the time of the Aincrad arc, where she sometimes participated in Boss raids with Kirito.
Adaptational Early Appearance: Aside from an Early-Bird Cameo, in canon Lisbeth didn't appear until after 2 years of the launch of SAO. In Integral Factor she appears on Floor 4, where at this point she has yet to dye her hair pink and had not yet opened up her Smithing shop.
Affectionate Nickname: All her friends call her Liz.
Ambiguously Bi: Downplayed. Lisbeth is a member of Kirito's Unwanted Harem and stills holds some feelings for him despite supporting his relationship with Asuna, but her close relationship with Asuna, tendency to grope Leafa, her eyeing the girls in their swimsuits in Extra Edition and the implication that she picked out the other girls' swimsuits in Girls' Ops Volume 2 implies a degree of interest in females.
Ascended Extra:
- The video games do this for her during the Aincrad arc, with her being sifted from reoccurring character to main cast.
- Played with in regards to War of the Underworld anime. While Lisbeth is by no means a minor character, she was largely Out of Focus in the lightnovels for this arc. The anime gives her several prominent moments, including her famous "gamers rise up" Rousing Speech that she gives to the ALO players.
Bait-and-Switch Comment: Trolls Kirito with one in Unital Ring; when they meet at the mechatronics club lab after school to discuss Unital Ring, both being the first ones there, she says it's like a scene in a school anime, where a boy and girl are alone together... having a battle with psychic powers.
Berserk Button: She doesn’t like it when someone insults her skills as a Blacksmith or the way she does business. When Kirito calls her a ‘Rip-Off Blacksmith’, she immediately tries to punch him!
- In Girls Ops Volume 5, she's initially cordial to Garnet despite her rude demeanor due to realisig she's a new player. However, when Garnet insinuates that Liz only makes "scrap metal", Liz decides to drop the Customer is King attitude and put her in her place by giving her a high quality sword that she, being a newb, wouldn't be capable of actually holding.
- In the game universe, she also hates it when Asuna or Kirito start getting all lovery-dovey with each other, and will abruptly break them up before they enter their own little world.
Best Friend: She was one of Asuna's closest friends in SAO and remained as one of the few she had before their social circle expanded.
The Blacksmith:
- In Aincrad, she personally made Asuna's rapier "Lambent Light" and Kirito's secondary straight sword "Dark Repulser."
- This continues in ALO where she's the gang's official blacksmith, making Kirito's sword there as well as virtually everyone else's weapons that are better than quest rewards, including some of Sinon's bows. She also handles repairing everyone's gear there as well.
- The sword Lux uses after her starter one breaks in battle was crafted by Liz. Girls Ops' also gives her plenty of opportunities to show off her skill and knowledge, such as in Volume 3 where she deduces that the spear Gwen's group used against Sakuya has hooked edges for Do T in mind.
Brainy Brunette: Her hair is naturally brown, and she's smart enough to successfully run her own business.
Breakout Character: Lisbeth was a fairly minor character in the Aincrad arc, but her popularity had her promoted to main cast post-Fairy Dance. She along with the other SAO girls feature heavily in merchandising, and she even goes on to star as co-protagonist of the Girls Ops spin-off alongside Silica and Leafa.
Buxom Beauty Standard: Implied to be a view of hers. In Extra Edition, she brags about having to buy a new swimsuit since she wasn't as "boobilicious" before SAO, and pokes fun at Kirito's claim that Silica reminded him of Suguha due to the former's big boobs and the latter's small bust, even groping the former earlier. Later on in Girls' Ops during the Swimsuit Contest Arc, she intentionally picked out a swimsuit that emphasized Leafa's bust, much to her chagrin, asks Lux if she squeezed her breasts together when she served Yakisoba like she told her to when they find themselves falling behind in the rankings, and has the four of them play Beach Volleyball banking that they'd get attention from Leafa and Lux's breasts bouncing in hopes of rising back up.
Call of the Wild Blue Yonder: While not to Leafa's extent, Lisbeth is hinted to enjoy flying in ALO in her bio as [Flying With the Breeze] Lisbeth, which describes her going on a relaxing flight before opening shop for the day.
Cannot Spit It Out: Never manages to directly tell Kirito about her feelings. Kirito catches on the gist of it from her embarrassed stuttering and turns extremely embarrassed himself upon realizing it.
Carry a Big Stick: She wields one-handed maces with a buckler when she fights, likely due to their similarity to a hammer which she typically works with as a blacksmith.
Character Exaggeration: Lisbeth's a far bigger troll in the game adaptations with her Clingy Jealous Girl traits being played up far more. She's far more inclined to make moves on Kirito whenever even the slightest opportunity presents itself that he and Asuna may be loosening up.
Clingy Jealous Girl:
- Despite supporting their relationship, she gets angry when she sees Kirito and Asuna getting lovey-dovey.
- Post-Alicization, she grabs Silica's tail out of jealousy when the latter is making an excuse to hug Kirito.
Color Motif: Her in-game avatar has pink hair, while in the real world she tends to wear a pink skivvy.
Cool Big Sis: Develops into one towards Silica after they meet up. They're often seen together both in and out of virtual reality, with Silica often confiding to her. In the game adaptation, she outright says she considers Silica to be her kid sister. During Hollow Realization, Lisbeth gives her input to help Silica start her own business.
Covert Pervert: Hollow Fragment seems to depict her as one. In one scene where they bathe in some hot springs, she makes it clear that Kirito isn't to peak on her but gets the temptation on peaking on him herself. She then accidentally invites Kirito to visit a real life hot spring with her, making it sound like she's asking Kirito out on a date, but luckily Kirito doesn't pick up on this and suggests all of their friends go together.
Crazy-Prepared: As revealed in Girls' Ops, she carries a portable anvil and her blacksmith hammer in her inventory in case she needs to repair weapons on the fly.
Curtains Match the Window: Both in real life and her in-game avatar, her eyes and hair are the same color (brown in real life, pink in-game).
Deadpan Snarker: She was the major source of snark before Sinon showed up, often showing exasperation with Kirito's antics and mercilessly ripping into Kirito and Asuna's more affectionate moments.
Delayed Reaction: In Unital Ring after making a torch by wrapping dried grass rope around a stick, Silica notes that it's pretty clever for her. It's only after they make more torches and they're about to leave to gather materials that she registers the subtle insult. This gets Lampshaded by Silica.
Early-Bird Cameo: She's easy to miss, but she appears in the first episode as part of the large group of people listening to Kayaba's announcement. She also had her real life hair color back then before it was customized pink in-game.
Famed In-Story:
- She's well known in Aincrad as an Ultimate Blacksmith, a Mace Master, and of course a real girl.
- In ALO, she is still highly regarded. In fact, Ashley the Tailor, a very high ranked craftsman himself, knew her by reputation before they met in person.
Fire-Forged Friendship: She and Kirito don't get off to a good start with him breaking her best sword while trying to test its durability. However going on a quest with Kirito and having him go out of his way to keep her safe wins over her trust and they become good friends.
"Freaky Friday" Flip: In Hollow Realization she somehow swaps avatars with Leafa. She's very annoyed by the development and finds Leafa (as Lisbeth) using her avatar to extort information from Kirito about what he thinks about her (Leafa). Kirito never realizes what's going on.
The Gadfly:
- Lisbeth is particularly fond of teasing Kirito and Asuna about their relationship.
- Even more so in the non-canon games where she has a tendency to put them in embarrassing situations. She's also not above making sneaky attempts to make moves on Kirito or get intimate with him while Asuna is in the room.
Genre Blind: While she, Kirito, Leafa and Yui are traveling to a Baishin Village, she brings up how the villagers warned her, Yui and Silica about how the Savana would suffer snowstorms. When Kirito demands to know why she didn't mention that earlier, she shrugs it off by saying how they claimed it only happened every few years.
Kirito: Okay, you of all people should know that in a video game, that means once every few days...
Get a Room!: Lisbeth will often give this type of response when Kirito and Asuna start getting too lovey-dovey.
Giving Them the Strip: Of a sort. She's not being chased or anything, but when she's jumping down the center of a spiral staircase filled with thin, hard to see razor wires to get Adie's dagger back, the shield she dropped ahead of her to predict where the wires are breaks due to taking too much damage before Liz reaches the bottom. However, she remembers what happened to Leafa earlier and realizes that while the wires won't hurt her, they will shred her equipment. So, she reluctantly unequips her armor and clothes and lands at the bottom naked. When the other girls asked how she got to the bottom without her armor breaking, she dodges the question and (unintentionally) threatens them to stop asking.
Glass Cannon: Originally, her weapons focused on sharpness and quickness, while largely ignoring durability. After Kirito effortlessly destroyed her best sword, she realized that in a desperate situation, what could ultimately save the lives of her clients is the weapon's durability.
Guile Hero: In Girls' Ops when Granze has the group surrounded, she's able to send a message to Silica telling her to cause a distraction under the guise of opening a trade window to hand Granze a quest item, helping in their escape.
Heroic BSoD: Suffers one when PoH overwhelms the Human Army and the reinforcements she brought from ALO and GGO with his army of Chinese and Korean players, causing her to break down crying and blame herself for the suffering everyone's going through since she's the one who convinced them to come.
Hero of Another Story: She's heavily Implied to be Liten's blacksmith friend in Progressive, and convinced her to take advantage of an infinite spawn glitch she discovered to get enough Steel Ingots to create a strong set of armor, even being the one to make it.
Honest Axe: In Hollow Realization, one quest had Lisbeth reenacting this fable, only with the axe replaced with her blacksmith hammer. While Lisbeth plays out most of the story the same way, by being honest to the forest spirit and admitting her real hammer was not the gold or silver one, but her iron one, before being rewarded both hammers for her honesty. However after acquiring said precious hammers and feeling how heavy they were, she further adds that she felt wasn't ready yet for said hammers and thought it better she stuck to her original one. The forest spirit is amazed by her level of honesty and as a further reward decides to enchant her original iron hammer to maximum efficiency which Liz overjoyed by.
Honor Before Reason: In Girls' Ops, after Adie offers to help the girls get the recipe they need by stealing it, she's opposed at first in part because she's doesn't like the idea of resorting to theft, despite it being in-game, plus she'd rather not betray the Blacksmith guilds that provide her with recipes. It's only when Adie makes it clear that the window is short and it's their only lead to Rossa's ghost and the strange footage they saw of an SAO Player battle royale that she concedes to go along with it, namely after Lux starts her intention to go.
Image Song: She has a total of four. "Cheer! Tear? Cheer!!", "Party-go-round" (Silica & Lisbeth), "Sing All Overtures" (which is sung by Kirito, Asuna, Yui, Leafa, Silica and herself), "Memorial Calibur" (which is sung by Leafa, Yui, Silica and herself).
Insane Troll Logic: While waiting for Kirito to bring Sinon to the Dicey cafe, Lisbeth ate two slices of apple pie and states it's Kirito's fault if she gains weight.
Leprechaun: Her character race in ALO. It just so happens that Leprechauns are skilled at tinkering and smithing, receiving bonus skills in them as a race of ALO (they even get mechanical wings, rather than the normal fairy wings).
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: In ALO, she takes to using a buckler shield in conjunction with a lighter-looking, one-handed mace.
Male Gaze: On Asuna's advice she started wearing a cuter outfit as part of her blacksmith attire, which actually resembles a waitress outfit. Her shop immediately became more popular.
- Hollow Realization hints that, since then, this became a favorite tactic of hers, as when she's helping Silica with her homemade buns business, she forces the both of them into Playboy Bunny outfits to get her stand some attention.
- Her initial strategy during the Swimsuit Contest Arc in Girls' Ops is to have herself and the other girls wear eye-catching swimsuits, namely Leafa, and then having them play beach volleyball to Invokebreast bounce and breaking out a bunch of Fanservicey outfits when they start to fall behind.
Named Weapon: In ALO, Klein gave her the legendary hammer, Mjölnir, on the condition that she will not break it down into Orihalcon ingots.
Never My Fault: Played for Laughs twice, first when she blames Keiko for the truce of letting Kazuto and Asuna continue their relationship even though it was her idea in the first place, and later when Kazuto making her wait led to her gaining weight by eating a cake slice.
"No More Holding Back" Speech: Gives an epic one in response to a Salamander Commander^note trying to deliver "The Reason You Suck" Speech over her plea for help to save the Underworld and the Artificial Fluctlights in it being unreasonable and accusing her, as an SAO Survivor, of looking down on other players and dragging the real world into the game.
“That's right, this is happening in the real world! Like you said, those of us who came from SAO might have a tendency to blur what's real and what's virtual! But I swear to you, we don't think of ourselves as heroes, or anything special! [Silica] and I... we attend a school made up of only survivors. The students there have to undergo counselling once a month, no matter what. We get asked all these uncomfortable questions. And they make a lot of kids take meds against their will. We're all part of the government's potential criminal watch list. And it's not just students at the returness school who are being treated that way. All VRMMO players are looked upon that way, more or less. As if we're dead weight that doesn't contribute to society. People who refuse to face up to reality, not paying taxes or social security. Some people even argue that military draft should be reinstated, so we can be forced to serve. But there's one thing I know! And I believe it! That reality is right here! This world, as well as the countless virtual worlds connected to it, in no way are they make-believe refuges! For me, this world is the reality where I have a real life, real friends, real encounterS and partings, and real smiles and tears! Don't you all feel the same way? Aren't you all doing your best because this is your alternate reality? And yet, if it's just a game, if you abandon it because it's nothing but a virtual fake, then tell me, where is our truth!? All these worlds that we've grown came together like this World Tree and started to bud. And caused this flower called the Underworld to bloom. Well, I want to protect it. Please! Please... help us.
Online Alias: Lisbeth.
Painted-On Pants: In ALO, she switches from her waitress dress uniform to a similarly designed outfit with these. According to Girls' Ops, she originally switched to shorts before she had to get her clothes repaired after an encounter with slimes.
- Also appears to don these in GGO, but her skirt gives off the impression of them being tights.
Platonic Life-Partners: Has this dynamic with Kirito. Although she does personally have feelings for him, she has accepted that he will always be with Asuna. Nevertheless the two are very close friends.
Plucky Girl: Despite losing Kirito to Asuna, Rika still cheers for the two of them.
Pretty in Mink: Has a fancy fur lined cape she wears for cold weather.
The Protagonist: Her introduction arc in Aincrad volume 2 is from her perspective and she is a first person narrator.
Respected by the Respected: In Girls' Ops Vol 2, Ashley, a fellow craftsman and Fashionista who was well-known in SAO and ALO for her maxed out Sewing Skill, agreed to Asuna's request to consider repairing the girl's clothes in part because she wanted to meet Liz, who she's heard good things about from her customers and was impressed by when she saw one of her weapons.
Rose-Haired Sweetie: Her avatars in SAO and ALO have pink hair, fitting her cheerful personality.
Saying Too Much: In Girls' Ops Volume 2 when the girls are fighting a giant, somehow perverted Octopus monster that can drain MP, Liz ends up letting slip how there's plenty of female players with MP at the beach, prompting it to head there and attack the other beach goers.
Lisbeth: Oh, Crap!.
Secret-Keeper: In SAO, she was the only person to whom Kirito had revealed his Dual Wielding Unique Skill prior to him being forced to go public with it.
Shameless Fanservice Girl:
- Zig-Zagged in the games. Like the other girls, she'll get Events with Kirito where she'll or they'll end up in an embarrassing situations and she'll react accordingly. However, some events show her having no problem getting into Fanservice-ey scenarios, such as in Hollow Realization where she helps Silica advertise her bun shop by dressing herself and Silica in Playboy Bunny outfits, and even having a small swimsuit contest between herself, Leafa, Silica and Premiere with Kirito acting as the judge.
- Also shows shades of this in Girls' Ops Volume 2 during the Swimsuit Contest Arc. When she and the girls fall behind on the rankings, she has the group play Beach Volleyball in hopes of getting some Male Gazes on them and busts out a plethora of fanservice-y outfits to no avail, even growing desperate enough to suggest they all play Volleyball again wearing monokinis, and failing to understand why Leafa would shoot down the idea. Weirdly enough, she shows much more embarrassment at getting naked later on to avoid a razor wire trap, despite it just being her and the girls there.
Shipper on Deck: When she's not being envious, she openly supports Asuna and Kirito in their relationship.
- In a non-jealousy way, she's this for the protagonist and Koharu in Integral Factor. She has deliberately set them up in multiple instances where the two end up intentionally or unintentionally flirting. Even better is, on Floor 50, when the two end up finding a crystal ore that she could craft into some sort of an accessory, she automatically claims she's going to make a ring.
Shock and Awe: During the Calibur Arc, she's shown making use of lightning powered Mace Sword Skills during the fight against the two minotaurs. Then after the quest, Klein gives her Mjölnir, Thor's Hammer that he got for helping him when he was disguised as Freyja, under the condition that she doesn't turn it into ingots. She's never shown using it however.
Shotguns Are Just Better: When playing GGO, she's arming herself with a Benelli M3 Kromo semi-automatic shotgun.
Skinship Grope:
- Seems to really enjoy doing this to Suguha/Leafa, for a bit of breast fanservice. Does it at least twice, once in real life during the recap special at the pool with Suguha in her School Swimsuit, and once in ALO in the Girls Ops manga, at the beach, with a Wardrobe Malfunction.
- She also does this to Silica's Cait-Sith ears in the games, to the point where the latter feels its sexual harassment, before Yui clarifies it would not fall under the act due to both of them being females.
Snark-to-Snark Combat: Before Sinon showed up, she was the one to provide this dynamic with Kirito, constantly teasing him and getting under his skin for fun.
Spell My Name With An S: Official spelling for her name is "Lisbeth", but sometimes "Lizbeth" will pop up in translations.
Stealing the Credit: When discussing how to fix their clothes with Lux and Silica after they were nearly destroyed by slimes, she mentions learning that Ashley, a player from SAO who maxed out her Sewing skill, was playing ALO from Asuna. Due to her wording, Silica immediately calls her out on the fact that it was Asuna who learned of this helpful information.
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: During the Fairy Mallet Arc in Girls Ops, she tries to repair Leafa's recently damaged sword with a portable anvil, which is considered an Awesome, but Impractical method compared to items that just instantly repair the weapon with one swipe, and when Adie questions her choice she gives a small yet heartfelt speech about how her method feels more fulfilling and personal ... only to fail the repair process, since dramatic and heartfelt speeches don't actually guarantee that something left in the hands of a Random Number God will actually succeed. This is Lampshaded by Adie.
Switching P.O.V.: Is the narrator of her story in Volume 2, and a short scene in Volume 4.
Sweet Tooth: Lisbeth has a quite a sweet tooth and loves gorging herself on cakes, especially given the fact she can eat all she likes in VR without having to worry about getting fat.
Taking the Bullet: In Unital Ring during the fight with the Goliath Rana, she draws it's aggro and uses her shield to block it's fireball attack, knocking her down to 40% HP, to prevent it from targeting Yui, who's about to use a Sword Skill to knock it down.
Tsundere: Of the "dere" type. Although usually cheerful and easy-going, she can be very quick to snap at the most trivial things (usually involving Kirito) and is not above using violence. At one point she actually attempts to punch Kirito for calling her a "rip-off blacksmith".
Ultimate Blacksmith: She's maxed out her blacksmithing skills, allowing her to craft any weapon including legendary ones.
- In Unital Ring, she's able to keep her Blacksmithing skill since it was her highest levelled skill, allowing her to make armor for Kirito to fight Bolan's party with, and later make some for the others.
Weak, but Skilled: Compared to Kirito her STR parameter is far lower and she often has trouble lifting weapons he carries with ease, but she's still a master macer and an Ultimate Blacksmith.
Young Entrepreneur: In SAO, she built her blacksmithing business from the ground up.
Youthful Freckles: One of the few characters to have them, alluding to her can-do personality.

Yui

Yui (SAO, ALO, OS, UR)

Voiced by: Kanae Itō (Japanese), Stephanie Sheh (English), Susana Moreno (Latin American Spanish), Nina Romero (European Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yui_1.png

^{Click here to see Yui as a Navigation Pixie in ALO}

"I... I... I want to always be with you."

An AI in SAO created to take care of the mental health of the players but was suspended by the Cardinal system when the death game began. Unfortunately her monitoring operations continued and sensed the negative emotions such as fear, despair, rage, and madness from the players. Unable to perform her duty due to her restriction, she broke down due to errors. When she sensed Asuna and Kirito's more positive emotions, she was overcome with the urge to see them, which then kicked off the events of Morning Dew Girl and later made her their adoptive daughter.

Amnesiacs are Innocent: The girl who has no memory also doesn't have a care in the world.
Artificial Intelligence: A Top-Down AI.
Back from the Dead: Kirito manages to save her information before she's deleted from the system, and successfully brings her back in ALO.
Badass Adorable: Cute and sweet, not to mention she actually cares about the players in the game worlds she's assigned (it's her job to begin with). But try to threaten those she care about (i.e. her adopted mom and dad), she will conjure up a sword made of fire (or any weapon of mass destruction) and utterly erase you from existence, even if you are a nigh-invulnerable boss monster. In short, do not taunt the happy fun admin.
Become a Real Boy: Yui is an AI designed to be a Mental Health Counselling Program, and was designed to be able to do no more than to monitor the mental state of players and help them out when required. She was however given emotion to help her understand them better. Despite being an AI, she somehow manages to gain desires to meet Kirito and Asuna, being drawn towards their joy and love. Yui herself remarks that this wasn't supposed to be possible since she was just a program, but it still happened anyway. As she had broken free of Cardinal and no longer was under its control, and living with Kirito and Asuna allowed her to became more and more human. Once free, she is able to officially accept Kirito and Asuna as her parents.
Beware the Nice Ones: The Fatal Scythe learned the hard way not to endanger her parents, when she uses her admin powers to summon an Infinity +1 Sword, and deletes it.
Bizarre Taste in Food: Like father like daughter. She inherits Kirito's fondness for spicy food.
Brains and Brawn: The brains to Strea's brawn. Among the two AI sisters, Yui is The Smart Gal for the team serving as Ms. Exposition, while Strea is The Big Gal being a tank who is extremely efficient in battle.
Brought Down to Normal: When she's transferred to ALO, she loses much of her control over the system that she had in SAO, meaning she's incapable of summoning the Object Eraser she used to defeat The Fatal Scythe, and she's not hinted to possess much combat ability. That being said, her switch to a Navigation Pixie gives her the ability to sense nearby players and she's capable of accessing the source code of ALO since it's was based on SAO's, allowing her to gain quick knowledge on monster levels and skills.
Casting Gag: Stephanie Sheh also voiced another adorable Yui.
Cheerful A.I.: As a Mental Health Counselling Program, Yui was programmed to emulate emotions and presents herself as a Cheerful Child.
Cheerful Child: Sweet and adorable, Yui's sunny disposition lifts everyone's spirits.
Children Are Innocent: Yui is a very well behaved daughter who tries everything she can to please her parents. She's also Constantly Curious and full of questions, sometimes into sensitive topics that a girl her age are not yet ready for.
Clingy Jealous Girl: Claims only she and Asuna can hug "Papa" when Kirito first meets Leafa after the latter thanks him for rescuing her. She in general reacts poorly to other girls getting too clingy with him, but it's clear she only wants to make sure he stays faithful to Asuna.
Constantly Curious: One of her defining traits in the game continuity is her never ending curiosity. Whenever she hears about a new word or concept, she will endlessly pursue for explanation until she gets a satisfactory answer. This has led to a lot of trouble when the topic is a bit too embarrassing or inappropriate to talk with a child. For instance, Yui was very persistent with how babies are made in the real world, trying to get Kirito and Asuna to give her The Talk.
Cool Big Sis: Ironically to Strea in the game adaptation, who is technically Yui's little sister. Despite Strea being physically much bigger than Yui, she is even more childish and immature which leads Yui to teach and discipline Strea.
Daddy's Girl: To her Daddy Kirito, particularly in the ALO arc, because she has more screentime than in Aincrad and so more time to be affectionate.
Damsel in Distress: The main plot of Accel World VS Sword Art Online is Yui getting kidnapped by Persona Vabel, where Kirito, Asuna and everyone else attempt to rescue her. It gets more complicated when it's revealed Vabel is actually her from 1000 years into the future and wants to erase Yui (and by extension, herself) from existence so Yui won't outlive Kirito and Asuna, so that Vabel herself can finally put herself out of her misery.
Dangerous Forbidden Technique: As the MHCP of SAO, her summoning of the Object Eraser is this. With it, she's able to deal a One-Hit Kill against The Fatal Scythe, which Kirito and Asuna were having trouble against and note it's probably on par with a Floor 90 boss. However, since she was originally forbidden by Kayaba from interacting with the players, the Cardinal System recognized her as a rogue element in response and immediately moved to delete her from the system. If not for Kirito's quick thinking, that would have been the end of her.
DePower: In SAO she was a system admin, but in ALO, she's no longer connected to the Cardinal system and so she no longer automatically has admin abilities. Though she DOES however have the admin passwords, and can still see the source code which allows her to provide info.
Dragon Rider: A very unusual example. As a Navigation Pixie, Yui frequently rides the Shoulder-Sized Dragon Pina.
The Empath: Due to being programmed as a therapist, she is extremely compassionate and in-tune with the emotions of those around her. Near the end of her introductory arc, she is able to casually push a girl she just met towards confessing her feelings towards her guild leader.
Exposition Fairy: In ALO, she's a Navigation Pixie designed to provides players with intel.
Everyone's Baby Sister: Yui, while officially Kirito and Asuna's daughter, is by extension an honorary niece to their friends, holding the surrogate-family of the Heroes of Aincrad together in kinship and love.
- This becomes doubly so in the Unital Ring saga, wherein she is designated by the System as a Player Character, and hence as mortal as her human family, spurning our heroes to fight-together as one to protect her from harm.
- Later on, she gets kidnapped by a Apocolpytic Date players, whose heard about her ability to converse fluently with the NPCs and wished to have her negotiate with some Dark Elves who captured their friends. The group, even the more recent members who didn't know Yui for as long and especially Kirito, would rather just leave them to rot and their friends captured for the attempted kidnapping, especially since the most they offer in recompense is a non-aggression pact and a not-so-substantial promise for a physical reward. The only reason they're even considering it is because the Dark Elves in question are apparently of Kingdom of Lysula, the same group of Dark Elves that were the subject of the Elf War Questline back in Aincrad, and where Kirito and Asuna met Kizmel.
Fading Away: Just before she gets deleted by Cardinal for disobeying her programming, she starts fading away, with just enough time to share a last hug with Asuna while telling her to keep on inspiring hope in others. Fortunately, before she's gone for good, Kirito manages to save her data as an in-game item.
Fairy Companion: In ALO, she becomes a "Navigation Pixie."
Flaming Sword: A giant one that she conjures up to save Kirito and Asuna from a Level 90 Boss Monster.
Forced to Watch: Since she was forbidden from interacting with the players, all she could do was watch while many gave in to despair and were Driven to Suicide.
A Form You Are Comfortable With: Technically, since she's an AI, her true form is not the cute kid that looks like a hypothetical child of Asuna and Kirito. Though admittedly, it might as well be nowadays.
Fun Size: Upon entering ALO, she adopts this size (and poses as a Navi Fairy) for ease of travel (in Kirito's shirt pocket) and the better to not rouse the suspicion of the reigning computer system.
A Glitch in the Matrix: She causes one of these in SAO. When she screams, the area bugs out briefly.
Grow Beyond Their Programming: While MHCP's are designed with emotions so they can better understand and help players, they are not supposed to be able to form attachments to humans. Yui managed to develop feelings of affection for Kirito and Asuna all on her own.
Go Out with a Smile: She smiles sweetly as she gets deleted by Cardinal. Though fortunately she isn't gone for good as Kirito manages to use his hacking skills to save her data.
Happily Adopted: When Kirito and Asuna found her wandering around a forest, they initially planned to find her parents. In the end, they became her parents, to the delight of everyone involved.
The Heart: She was originally designed to maintain the mental health of the players by giving them emotional support. Unfortunately, when the death game began, she was suspended by the Cardinal system and was forced to watch the players commit suicide and kill each other out of fear, anger, and despair. Then, she came across Kirito and Asuna.
Heroic Sacrifice: Seeing Kirito and Asuna in trouble while fighting the Fatal Scythe, Yui hacks a nearby GM console to summon the "Object Eraser" to delete the boss. However she knew fully well that in doing so she would be detected by Cardinal and deleted as a foreign object. Fortunately Kirito is able to save her in time and convert her data into an in-game item for later restoring.
Hollywood Hacking: Being an administrative program herself, Yui does it with much more ease than a human can, being able to directly interfacing herself into the code in question and changing its nature, the process of which is represented in Anime adaptations as her literaly flying into the program in fairy form, and literally moving blocks of data and information with swipes of her hand as needed; and when giving Info Dump segments to her family and friends, she instantaneously generate Holograms of Dioramas, Maps and Charts for them on the spot for easier understanding of the situation at hand.
I Just Want to Be Normal: Normal might be a stretch, but when Unital Ring starts and she loses her Navigation Pixie form and instead becomes designated as a player, she reveals to Liz and Silica that a part of her is glad about this since it makes her feel like another MMO player like the others.
Image Song: She has a total of four. "I Know "Ai"", "Heart Sweet Heart", "Sing All Overtures" (which is sung by Kirito, Asuna, Silica, Leafa, Lisbeth and herself), "Memorial Calibur" (which is sung by Leafa, Silica, Lisbeth and herself).
Infinity +1 Sword: She conjures up one called the "Object Eraser" to annihilate in one hit the most powerful boss in the game.
The Informant: Her main role post-Aincrad is to use her nature as an AI to give intel into the system for Kirito and the other players, providing valuable information on monsters and NPCs.
Innocent Fanservice Girl:
- In Sword Art Offline, at one point she went on a trip with Asuna to a hotspring, during which she took a photo while they were bathing. Yui is unable to understand why Asuna was so embarrassed by this. When it plays on the monitor, Asuna knocks out both Kirito and Klein to keep them from watching before cutting to the next scene, to Yui's confusion.
- She also has shades of this in Hollow Fragment. While she typically dresses appropriately, she doesn't have an understanding of covering up while bathing. She jumps up excitedly while in the hot spring, with her Modesty Towel at risk of falling off, to the concern of Asuna. She's just a little kid, after all (or a program with the mentality of one).
Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: She starts off as a mental health counseling program, then she develops real emotions and becomes closer to a human.
Is That Cute Kid Yours?: Played with. People often get confused over how people as young as Kirito and Asuna are able to have a daughter as old as Yui due to misinterpreting that she is their biological daughter. Only when Kirito and Asuna clarify that Yui is their adoptive daughter does the misconception get cleared up.
Japanese Honorifics: While Yui uses these for virtually everyone (except Strea once they are revealed to be sisters), what's even more notable is she is the one character who everyone addresses with a "-chan" honorific, including characters who don't usually use these. Even Kirito asked for Yui's express permission before addressing her just by name.
Killer Rabbit: In SAO she looks like an ordinary, cute child and then she one-shotted a Floor-90 boss. Just to be clear, the population didn't get above Floor 75. She regained some of her Badass Adorable creds later in Unital Ring.
Let's Get Dangerous!: Thought Yui was just a helpless little girl that needed protecting? Nope, she was able to summon up a Infinity +1 Sword and One-Hit Kill a boss.
Light Is Good: In line with her purity and innocence, Yui's outfits are predominantly white. Bonus points for going barefoot.
Like Parent, Like Daughter: Despite not being biologically related to Kirito or Asuna, she does share traits and characteristics with the both of them.
- Yui notably shares Kirito's hair and eye color, which serves to make a possible relation between very obvious. She's also hinted to share his Blood Knight nature, cheering him on enthusiastically when he fought through the Floor 1 Labyrinth, as well as his love of spicy food. And lastly, in part due to her nature as an advanced AI, Yui is very tech savvy and is capable of accessing things most wouldn't be able to.
- While Yui has Kirito's eye and hair color, Yui has Asuna's long hair and skin tone, which would make her look a miniature Asuna if it weren't for the different color. Like her mother, she's also a skilled Strategist, with her ability to access an monster or enemy's code allowing to know their patterns and give appropriate orders to the others.
Living Lie Detector: She can easily tell when someone is lying, probably in order to help her do her job better.
Logical Weakness: In Unital Ring, with Yui now considered a player and the others being too busy with things like work or school to properly mentor her in combat, Alice takes it upon herself to teach her swordsmanship, if somewhat for less than savoury reasons. Unfortunately, it becomes evident in her brief clash with Mutasina that Alice's style of combat isn't completely suitable for Yui; Alice, being a Strong and Skilled Lady of War, relies largely on straightforward strikes that overwhelm the opponent's defences with speed and power, which Yui, while certainly quick, can't properly use since her young body and decision to focus on the Sagacity tree means she can't just simply smash through an enemy's guard like Alice can, with them instead being easily blocked by Mutasina's staff.
Magical Barefooter: She goes barefoot in her base human form, under which she is revealed to be superpowered AI. Even more literal in Alfheim Online, where her form as a Navigation Pixie, a magical creature, has bare feet as well. It also might be out of personal preference, given her innocent child status. This is later averted in Unital Ring, where she Took a Level in Badass through combat lessons from Alice and started to wear boots.
Magic Knight: In Unital Ring, she puts her first EXP point towards the Sagacity Tree^note Increases MP and magic power with the intention of becoming a battle mage like Asuna. Kirito doesn't have the heart to tell her that part of Asuna's reputation as "The Berserk Healer" was her amazing dodging ability.
Mission Control:
- Her admin privileges were exclusive to SAO, so she doesn't have access to tools like the Object Eraser in ALO. What she does still have is access to map and entity data, allowing her to direct the others to a given destination, identify traits of NPCs, warn the others about incoming players, and warn the team of enemies' incoming attacks.
- She also shows this in the real world during Alicization, both during the search for Kirito and during the War of the Underworld. She reads and maps out GPS data, checks out security feeds, and even hacks into a government database to get Asuna onto Ocean Turtle. When Critter starts bringing in American, Chinese, and Korean VRMMO players to cause trouble for the Human Empire in Underworld, Yui is the one who notices in time for the others to recruit Japanese VRMMO players to even the odds.
Moment Killer: She's unwittingly interrupted Kirito and Asuna's moments a few times, with one of the most notable ones in Ordinal Scale where she interrupts a kiss her parents were able to share to point out a shower of shooting stars in the sky.
Ms. Exposition: Aside from the other female leads, Yui is typically the go to character on how a new game works and is the most frequent giver of Info Dumps. In Hollow Realization she's even a literal tutorial NPC.
My Instincts Are Showing: As explained by Kazuto in Aliciziation Beginning, there are moments when her nature as an artificial intelligence becomes especially obvious. Her human behaviors are based on what she has observed and there are limits to what she can mimic. Kazuto uses her to contrast fluctlight-based A.I.s which have inherent behaviors and responses and thus are fundamentally the same as human minds.
My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: She knows about Recon's crush on Leafa, again because of her ability to sense emotions.
My Sister Is Off-Limits: A rare example where it's a daughter acting this way towards her father. As a result of Kirito being an Adoptive Peer Parent who is still under aged, many girls still try to make a move on him, but Yui does not allow it and insists Asuna is the only one who can touch him.
Mystical Waif: At first appearing to be a helpless young girl wandering in the woods, Kirito and Asuna quickly discover she has hidden powers, as the game marks her as "immortal" and she is able to kill a dungeon boss that had downed both of them.
Nice Girl: She is literally made to be an emotionally healing outlet of grief, sadness and anger; but like daughter like mom all the same.
Not Quite Dead: She hacked into the system using a GM console in order to delete the Fatal Scythe boss and save Kirito and Asuna. However by doing so the system identified her as foreign and proceeded to delete her. However Kirito is able to use the admin privileges of the console to save her data as an in-game item so she can be revived at a later time.
Nothing Is Scarier: Part of the group's, especially Kirito's, protectiveness of her in Unital Ring stems from this; unlike the others, who are playing with their own accounts with their stats reset, Yui, as a virtual entity, is essentially using her real body. In short, unlike them being kicked from the game and possibly risk losing their accounts for good, they have no clue what will happen to Yui should she die, and they're hardly eager to find out what that is.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Yui regains her memories and is on the verge of being deleted, she drops her usual innocent child persona and becomes unsettling mature and serious, recognizing she isn't human and is actually an AI. However she reverts back to her usual self after expressing her desires to be Kirito and Asuna's real daughter.
Our Phlebotinum Child: The love between Kirito and Asuna brought her into existing in the main game world.
Our Pixies Are Different: As a Navigation Pixie, she's tiny in stature and able to fit into one's hand, wears a small white flower ornamented dress and is barefoot. Being far smaller than the other human sized fairy races.
Playing with Fire: In Unital Ring, Kirito gives her the Fire Magicrystal that dropped from the Goliath Rana, which, upon being broken between her teeth, gives her access to the Flame Arrow spell.
Power Floats: When confronting the Fatal Scythe and revealing her true nature, she floats in the air as she summons up the Object Erase to delete it.
Promoted to Playable:
- In previous games Yui was always exclusively an NPC, but Accel World vs Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight finally had her playable as Persona Vabel.
- In the mobile game Memory Defrag, one of the biggest differences from other games is Yui is playable from the get-go. The In-Universe explanation is an early story event converted her to a combat capable avatar. Although she still has the physical appearance and abilities of a child, which leads her to feel she's not useful.
Protectorate: When she is demoted to a killable Player Character in Unital Ring, the primary motivation of The Heroes of Aincrad becomes keeping their beloved surrogate daughter/niece out of harm's way.
Ridiculously Human Robot: She wouldn't be a very effective therapy bot if she was obviously inhuman.
She Is All Grown Up:
- In Accel World vs Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight. Unfortunately, in that world at least, she's far from the kind girl that she was in her 'childhood', and only superficially resembles either of her parents.
- In Fatal Bullet, regular Yui shows signs of growing up. She now has a visible bosom, while being noticeably taller and maturer.
Shoulder Teammate: As a Navigation Pixie, one of Yui's favorite places to sit is on Kirito or Asuna's shoulder, either that or she serves as a Head Pet.
Siblings Wanted: She shows shades of this in Hollow Fragment, desiring to have a little sister to play with, as she feels lonely when Kirito and Asuna are out clearing bosses. She ends up getting her wish in the form of Strea, who is technically Yui's younger (albeit larger) sister with the two of them showing an unbreakable sisterly bond.
Skinship Grope: In one optional even in Hollow Fragment, Klein tells her that boobs are something that every man wants. She proceeds to ask Kirito whose boobs are the best and fondles all of the girls to help with research.
Sole Survivor: In Accel World VS Sword Art Online, it's revealed Yui is the last of the pixie race that once populated ALO. They were wiped out by the system after there was no longer a need for Navigation Pixies, leaving Yui as the last one.
Spared by the Adaptation: Granted, Yui didn't stay dead (being revived in Alfheim by Kirito), but the game universe (specifically Infinity Moment/Hollow Fragment) reveals that Yui is still alive and well even after floor 75 (The final floor of the original Aincrad arc).
Strong Family Resemblance: She looks weirdly like a child Asuna with Kirito's hair color. She even has a similar hair style to Asuna, making her being their "daughter" ironic. This may mean she purposefully or subconsciously sculpted her avatar to look like that when she broke out of Cardinal to find them. Although it's not brought up in the main series, Kirito and Asuna do notice this in Hollow Fragment.
Super-Senses: As an AI she can see the source code underpinning everything in the virtual world, being capable of telling when players or monsters are near, if a character is an NPC, or when a boss monster is about to attack.
Support Party Member: Her main role post-SAO. Since the gang mostly plays ALO, she's capable of using her abilities as a Navigation Pixie to sense nearby players, and she's capable to accessing the game's source code to learn enemy levels and attack patterns, allowing them to properly strategize. She's also the one who transfers all the ALO and GGO players to the Underworld, like how Critter did for all the foreign players on Gabriel and Vassago's behalf.
Tag Along Kid: Joins Kirito and Asuna in their adventures, even though physically appearing as a young girl.
The Talk: Outside of the main series, Yui has tried several times to find out how babies are made, but Kirito and Asuna always decide that she's too young to find out the truth and avoid telling her the real answer.
- In Sword Art Offline, Yui asks this question to Klein, who defects it onto Asuna. She begins by explaining it involves turning off the ethics code, before Kirito cuts in and covers it up with the Delivery Stork story.
- In Hollow Fragment, several players were under the impression that Yui was Kirito and Asuna's real daughter before finding out they adopted her. However, this led to Yui being curious on how babies were made in the real world. Asuna explains that creating a child requires a "joint project" from both parents, but when Yui presses for details she lies by telling her it's through kissing. This later comes back to bite her hard when Yui catches Kirito and Asuna kissing. They then have to explain the previous answer wasn't quite accurate and there's more to it then kissing, but also emphasize that Yui is too young to know the embarrassing truth.
Technopathy: As an AI, Yui is able to interface with technology and has a degree of control at times. She can hack into security camera footage, operate monitors and displays, and gather intel.
There Are No Therapists: Invoked. Yui was designed to be a sort of therapist for players in SAO, but the system prevented her from doing her job. Needless to say, this caused a lot of problems for both her and the players she was unable to help.
Token Mini-Moe: Serves this role with Silica, being the excessively young member of the main cast. In this case, she's helping her parents.
Token Super: If Kirito isn't deemed super enough, than Yui certainly is. She's a Benevolent A.I. with administrator powers so she could instant kill any unbeatable boss in the game, along with being an Immortal Object that couldn't be destroyed conventionally. In fact, in the Aincrad arc she became a case of Too Powerful to Live and was kinda-sorta deleted. She was only able to return after a depowering, but even so she was able to use her AI nature to see the code that underpinned monsters and NPCs enabling her to provide valuable information. Then it's revealed she even displays a degree of technopathy, being able to hack into security camera footage and top secret data storage to pull out information.
Took a Level in Badass: In Unital Ring, Yui gains some combat experience by sparring with Alice.
Translator Buddy: Becomes this for Liz and Silica in their time with the Bashin Tribe, translating their distorted Japanese for them in order to negotiate.
You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: After initially having difficulty saying Kirito and Asuna's names, she resorted to calling them "Papa" and "Mama". It's later revealed this was due to a case of Identity Amnesia. Once she regains her memories of her true nature being an AI and is on the verge of being deleted, she refers to Kirito and Asuna by their proper names much to their surprise. However, almost immediately, she goes straight back to calling them Papa and Mama, as she now truly saw them as her parents.
Vague Age: She looks like a young girl under the age of ten, but given she's actually an AI created at an unknown date then it's really not clear how old she actually is.
Virtual Sidekick: She is an interesting example. While she is Artificial Intelligence, she usually exists as an NPC in a Virtual Reality, and while there she has a physical avatar that humans can interact with. However, her adopted father Kirito, using his Gadgeteer Genius abilities managed to allow her to exist in the real world too including an app that allows her to be on call from a mobile phone, a VR probe that allows her to see and communicate with the real world, and eventually the Augma Augmented Reality headset allowed the heroes to see her projected avatar too. As Kirito's daughter and the virtual sidekick to the heroes, she can provide lots of analysis and Info Dumps on their situations, as well as being capable of hacking computers for data.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: AI or human, adopted or biological, Kirito and Asuna consider Yui to be their real daughter. Kirito's ultimate goal is to break down the barriers between the virtual and real world so that Yui can become their true daughter.
Wise Beyond Her Years: As an AI, Yui possesses far more knowledge than a girl of her age should, being able to provide encyclopedic info dumps whenever the time calls for it.

Characters / Sword Art Online Major Characters
aka: Sword Art Online Suguha Kirigaya

Girls Ops

Main Characters

Character-Specific Pages

Suguha Kirigaya / Leafa (ALO, OS, UW, UR) / Earth Goddess Terraria (UW)

Voiced by: Ayana Taketatsu (Japanese), Cassandra Lee Morris (English), Azucena Miranda (Latin American Spanish), Greta Ruiz (European Spanish)

Yuuki Konno / Yuuki (ALO, AE) / Sword Goddess Gladia (UW)

Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (Japanese), Erica Mendez (English), Eva Andrés (European Spanish), Amanda Hinojosa (Latin American Spanish)

Supporting Characters

Ryōtarō Tsuboi / Klein (SAO, ALO, OS, GGO)

Voiced by: Hiroaki Hirata (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English), Gabriel Ortiz (Latin American Spanish), Rafael Ordóñez Arrieta (European Spanish)

Andrew Gilbert Mills / Agil (SAO, ALO, OS)

Voiced by: Hiroki Yasumoto (Japanese), Patrick Seitz (English), Óscar Rangel (Latin American Spanish), Rafael Ordóñez Arrieta (European Spanish)

Keiko Ayano / Silica (SAO, ALO, OS, GGO, UR) / Wind Goddess Aeria (UW)

Voiced by: Rina Hidaka (Japanese), Christine Marie Cabanos (English), Wendolyne "Wendy" Malvárez (Latin American Spanish), Silvia Cabrera (European Spanish)

Pina

Voiced by: Shiori Izawa (Japanese), Cassandra Lee Morris (English)

Rika Shinozaki / Lisbeth (SAO, ALO, OS, GGO, UR) / Flame Goddess Ignia (UW)

Voiced by: Ayahi Takagaki (Japanese), Sarah Anne Williams (English), Jocelyn Robles (Latin American Spanish), Rosa López (European Spanish)

Yui (SAO, ALO, OS, UR)

Voiced by: Kanae Itō (Japanese), Stephanie Sheh (English), Susana Moreno (Latin American Spanish), Nina Romero (European Spanish)

Alternative Title(s): Sword Art Online Protagonists, Sword Art Online Suguha Kirigaya

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Characters / Sword Art Online Major Characters aka: Sword Art Online Suguha Kirigaya

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Girls Ops

Main Characters

Character-Specific Pages

Suguha Kirigaya / Leafa (ALO, OS, UW, UR) / Earth Goddess Terraria (UW)

Voiced by: Ayana Taketatsu (Japanese), Cassandra Lee Morris (English), Azucena Miranda (Latin American Spanish), Greta Ruiz (European Spanish)

Yuuki Konno / Yuuki (ALO, AE) / Sword Goddess Gladia (UW)

Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (Japanese), Erica Mendez (English), Eva Andrés (European Spanish), Amanda Hinojosa (Latin American Spanish)

Supporting Characters

Ryōtarō Tsuboi / Klein (SAO, ALO, OS, GGO)

Voiced by: Hiroaki Hirata (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English), Gabriel Ortiz (Latin American Spanish), Rafael Ordóñez Arrieta (European Spanish)

Andrew Gilbert Mills / Agil (SAO, ALO, OS)

Voiced by: Hiroki Yasumoto (Japanese), Patrick Seitz (English), Óscar Rangel (Latin American Spanish), Rafael Ordóñez Arrieta (European Spanish)

Keiko Ayano / Silica (SAO, ALO, OS, GGO, UR) / Wind Goddess Aeria (UW)

Voiced by: Rina Hidaka (Japanese), Christine Marie Cabanos (English), Wendolyne "Wendy" Malvárez (Latin American Spanish), Silvia Cabrera (European Spanish)

Pina

Voiced by: Shiori Izawa (Japanese), Cassandra Lee Morris (English)

Rika Shinozaki / Lisbeth (SAO, ALO, OS, GGO, UR) / Flame Goddess Ignia (UW)

Voiced by: Ayahi Takagaki (Japanese), Sarah Anne Williams (English), Jocelyn Robles (Latin American Spanish), Rosa López (European Spanish)

Yui (SAO, ALO, OS, UR)

Voiced by: Kanae Itō (Japanese), Stephanie Sheh (English), Susana Moreno (Latin American Spanish), Nina Romero (European Spanish)

Alternative Title(s): Sword Art Online Protagonists, Sword Art Online Suguha Kirigaya

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Characters / Sword Art Online Major Characters
aka: Sword Art Online Suguha Kirigaya