Sword Art Online / Tropes C to D

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C

• The Cake Is a Lie: Supposedly, in ALfheim Online, the first player to reach the city on top of The World Tree will unlock unlimited flight for their entire race. The city does not exist, and the entrance gate to the top of the tree requires admin rights to open. See Unwinnable by Design below.
• Call-Back: The first episode of the first season is called "The World of Swords." The second season's first episode is "The World of Guns."
  • Kirito uses the appearance of The Gleam Eyes from SAO as inspiration when using the monster-transformation spell in ALO. The reveal sequence is almost identical, and except for a different color scheme and an extra goatee, their appearances are much the same as well.
  • The fact that Heathcliff was actually Akihiko Kayaba becomes important again when it allows Kirito to one-up Sugou in terms of GM privileges by logging in with that ID.
  • In the second season, Klein and Kirito share the exact same exchange after he reveals his Skill Connect exploit as they did when he first revealed his Dual Wielding in the first season
    Klein: Anyways, what was that just now?
    Kirito: Do I have to say?
    Klein: Of course! I've never seen anything like that before!
• Call-Forward: In Progressive, after recalling that Joe, a fairly belligerent underling of Kibaou's, was also the person who'd accused Nezha off getting someone killed, laments his failure to recognize him, and noting that "Someday, that was going to put me in danger." In the Phantom Bullet arc, Kirito's inability to recognize Death Gun's identity causes him problems for a while.
• Calling Your Attacks: Done rarely in the anime, but in the video games characters constantly shout the names of attacks they perform, most notably Kirito's "Starburst Stream!"
• The Cameo: Kureha and Zeliska from Fatal Bullet appear briefly in the first episode of Alicization playing pool in the main GGO lounge.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Lizbeth to Kirito. She was about to spit it out... and then realized that he's with Asuna.
• Canon Marches On: For a long time, the Girls' Ops spinoff manga existed in a state of Loose Canon, never being acknowledged by the main storyline. However, as of Volume 25, parts of it have been rendered non-canon because of a single line which reveals Argo never dived into a VRMMO game again after escaping Aincrad.
• Casting Gag:
  • Kirito is one to Bryce Papenbrook: he was once a virtual reality gamer named Shugo Kunisaki of .hack//Legend of the Twilight who happens to have the same probliem with the video game system as Kirito. Kirito's Spriggan avatar also looks like Rin Okumura of Blue Exorcist, another character voiced by Bryce Papenbrook.
  • This is not the first time Cherami Leigh voiced an ultra-badass Action Girl who mainly fights with a sword.
  • Stephanie Sheh also voiced another adorable Yui.
  • Michelle Ruff has voiced a sharpshooter before....
    • This also isn't the first time she's had a hang-up regarding guns (albeit a very very different sort of hang-up).
  • Miyuki Sawashiro has been another blue-haired badass Action Girl, along with another blue-haired animal person in a game world.
  • Aoi Yūki voices Yuuki in the Japanese version, and the character's personality is similar to another one of Aoi's more well-known roles as Hibiki. 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...
    • Of course, in an Alternate Timeline, Yuuki Konno does begin to come back from the brink...
  • Yoshitsugu Matsuoka ended up voicing another elite gamer who gets trapped in a game world, though he's a lot happier with the outcome than here.
    • It's revealed that Akira Ishida was the main inspiration for Matsuoka becoming a voice actor in the first place, so later on, Ishida voices Gabriel Miller, the penultimate antagonist from War of Underworld (of at least what was the web novel series).
  • Hiroki Yasumoto is known for voicing The Big Guy. Guess who voices the giant shopkeeper-axeman-bartender?
  • 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.
  • This is also the second time Ayana Taketatsu plays a little sister who has a strained relationship with her brother.
  • Johnny Yong Bosch has played a nice guy who turns out to be a despicable person.
  • Sugou wasn't the first time Todd Haberkorn voiced somebody that sexually harassed Cherami Leigh's character (though in that case, it was played for comedy).
  • Ai Kayano played another badass blonde knight in an RPG Mechanics 'Verse series. And prior to that, she was a badass blonde knight in an actual RPG.
  • Takeshi Kaga played another grief-stricken bespectacled father in a movie based on an anime.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub of the Ordinal Scale movie, Idol Singer Yuna is voiced by Melissa Gedeón, who is also a professional singer as well in her native Mexico.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: During Phantom Bullet, Kirito comments on the presence of metal swords in GGO after Death Gun surprises him with an improvised Estoc. Death Gun replies that a player has to custom-make it, and his Estoc is 'as good it gets' and statistically inferior to Kirito's Photon Sword. Neither of them even raises their voice, despite Death Gun being a SAO survivor and ex-Laughing Coffin.
• The Cavalry:
  • In Episode 23, the Cait-Sith and Sylph forces show up to help Kirito to break through the guardians of the world tree.
  • In SAO II Episode 21 and 22, Kirito and Klein pull a Big Damn Heroes to Hold the Line, buying time for Asuna and the Sleeping Knights to defeat the boss.
• Central Theme: The entire franchise has the unifying theme of exploring the relationship between the real world and virtual reality. Particularly how people modify their behavior depending on which one they're in, and how they either integrate or compartmentalize their identity between the two.
• Character Level: It IS supposed to be an MMORPG... Kirito is explicitly referred to as one of the highest-leveled characters in SAO, though he later resets his stats in ALO.
• Chekhov's Gag: of the Visual Pun variety. In the Alfheim arc, while interrupting the attack on the Slyph / Cait-Sith meeting, Kirito tells the Salamander General that he represents the (non-existent) Spriggan / Undine alliance. Kirito is a Spriggan, and Asuna's (eventual) main avatar is an Undine... meaning the two of them form a Spriggan/Undine alliance of their own.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Subverted with the Divine Stone of the Returning Soul. After finding out that it will only work if used within ten seconds of the player's death, Kirito gives it to Klein and tells him to use it on the next person he sees die. He must have used it somewhere along the line, because it's never seen or even mentioned again, even when a powerful boss one-shots several raid members in a raid containing both Kirito and Klein.
  • Hitting a programmed set-piece displays the message Immortal Object. Logically, this extends to an AI, and it definitely extends to the GM.
    • This also doubles as a Chekhov's Gag, as the first instance seen in the anime is when Kirito is sent tumbling into a pillar by Asuna after a trip to Marshmallow Hell.
  • In Illusionary Avenger (Season 1 Episode 6), Kirito learns that couples married in-game have a shared inventory, and that if one partner dies the other inherits everything. In the light novel, this was the final piece of evidence used to prove that Grimlock had his wife Griselda killed; since she was wearing her guild seal and wedding ring, Grimlock got the rare ring in her inventory. When Asuna dies Taking the Bullet for Kirito during his duel with Kayaba, her rapier becomes available to him, allowing him to use it to defeat Kayaba.
  • The Phantom Bullet arc has a literal gun, Kirito's FN Five seveN. While he generally relies on his photon sword rather than his pistol, he uses it to stop Death Gun from using his Invisibility Cloak at the end of their battle.
    • Related to this, one of the properties of the AmuSphere is that it does not fully cut you off from your real body's sensory signals. During the duel with Death Gun, Asuna grabs Kirito's hand, and the warm feeling reminds him that he has the gun.
  • Due to the anime placing the stories in chronological order, Kirito's mechatronics project becomes this. Kirito intended it to be a way for Yui to interact with the real world, and he shows off a prototype at the finale of the Caliber arc. It's used again in the Mother's Rosario arc to give Yuuki a chance to go to school and see the real world again before she dies.
  • In the Mother's Rosario arc, it's briefly mentioned that Asuna has another account, a Sylph character named Erika, she can use to challenge Yuuki, but she decides against it. She later convinces her mother to use Erika to log in to ALO and see the house that Asuna bought near the start of the arc (another Chekhov's gun), which is reminiscent of Asuna's maternal grandparents' home.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In a sense, the Gleam Eyes when Kirito uses his illusion magic to turn into him.
  • Kazuto's sister, who is briefly mentioned in Aincrad as a kendo practitioner (with whom Kazuto trained before picking up gaming), is introduced as a major character in Alfheim and beyond.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • When Kirito transfers his SAO data to ALO, his stats show One-Handed Swords 1000, Unarmed 996, and Fishing 641. The Unarmed skill comes in handy during the denouement of the Fairy Dance arc.
  • After scouting the boss, Kirito mentions that to fight the level 74 boss, they'd need a couple of Stone Wall characters using shields. Asuna asks him about that, and wonders why he never uses a shield despite only using a 1-handed sword. She mentions that she doesn't use one because it slows her rapier attacks down. It turns out that Kirito doesn't use a shield because he learned how to dual wield, and is forced to utilize it in order to defeat the level 74 boss, which surprises all of the characters around him after he barely defeats it. When Klein asks about how he learned it, even Kirito says he's not sure how he managed to acquire the skill, mentioning it showed up in his skill set about 6 months earlier.
  • Most guns in GGO leave a bullet prediction line before they fire so that they can be dodged. Sinon intentionally projects a bullet prediction line onto Death Gun to distract him and give Kirito an opening he desperately needed.
• Chick Magnet: Kirito is one. However, he is usually better than most harem protagonists in the sense that girls will usually fall for him after a decent amount of interaction happens. Also unlike other harem protagonists, Kirito is usually seen as The Ace rather then an Ordinary High-School Student or, worse, a loser. Also averts more typical harem tropes in that the Romantic sub plot is finished early on and other girls are not treated as potential rivals thereafter.
• Cliffhanger:
  • Episode 9 of season 2 ends on one, with Sinon paralyzed by Death Gun, who also fires a shot at her in order to find out if the Kirito in GGO is the same one as in SAO.
  • Episode 13 of season 2, after Shino is attacked in her apartment, and Kirito storms in to knock the attacker off of her.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: A few examples:
  • Non-romantic example with Yui, who declares that the only ones who can hug Kirito are herself and Asuna.
  • Leafa gets a bit jealous in 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.
  • Played straight with Lisbeth in Episode 25 after she spots Kirito and Asuna sitting together on a bench outside. Silica tells her to calm down.
• Clip Show: The first half of the OVA. Kirito talks to a government agent recalling events in the game world through his perspective. Meanwhile, the girls talk about their various interactions with Kirito, which essentially shows important parts where they interacted with him, in-between teaching Suguha how to swim.
• Close-Call Haircut: this happens to Kirito during the Phantom Bullet arc, from a sniper bullet. He knew it was coming, but could afford to stand in the open as bait to reveal the attacker's position.
• Code Name: Almost everyone uses one, which protects their real life identity. Averted by Asuna, who, being an MMORPG noob, used her real name as her screen name.
  • Surviving SAO players tend to refer to each other by their SAO screen names.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Inflicted by Kirito to Sugou: he sets the pain absorber to 0, and proceeds to cut his hand off, then cut his whole body in half, before finally impaling him in the head.
• Cold Sniper: Sinon at first. She defrosts somewhat into a Friendly Sniper later on.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Aincrad: Green markers denote players, while yellow markers denote Non Player Characters. When players commit crimes, such as attacking other players outside of duels, the markers over their heads go from green to orange. One guild uses members with green markers to lure in victims. Hollow Realization, set in Ainground, adds blue markers in-story, which occur when players attack NPCs.
  • The races in Alfheim Online each have a trademark color. This usually matched their clothes, hair and eye color.
• Color Motif: 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), and Yuuki (Purple), Alice (Gold), and Eugeo (Blue). The only exception is Silica who has variably been given Red, Blue, and Yellow, without any specific fixed color.
• Combat Medic: Asuna's ALO build, playing as an Undine Healer, but also specializing for rapier sword skills, complementing her experience from SAO. There's a reason she's nicknamed "Berserk Healer."
• Combos: There are Sword Skills that have more than one strike.
  • The Mother's Rosario arc starts with players being drawn to a challenge issued by a player with a heretofore-unseen sword skill that gives an 11-hit combo, who offers to teach the sword skill to anyone who manages to defeat her.
  • A plot point in the Alicization arc where Kirito's Aincrad-Style is the only sword skill sect that has multi-hit attacks.
• Competitive Balance: In one episode Kirito mentions that while SAO is horrible, it is essentially fair to all the players and gives everyone a chance to succeed.
• Compressed Adaptation: Some parts of the light novel are trimmed when adapting to the anime.
  • In the "Murder Case In The Area", arc, the confrontation between Kirito and the top three Laughng Coffin officers is shortened, and the references to chronologically later events are removed. The final confrontation with the killer, Grimlock, has said individual give up immediately, removing the part in which Yoruko proves the person in question's guilt.
  • The scene with Shino and Kyouji in the former's apartment omits some of his exposition about why he was broken to the point of becoming Death Gun, what he plans on doing with her and the part in which she threatens him with a model gun.
• Continuing is Painful: ALO (and presumably post-ALO games made using the Seed) lacks a level system, instead improving stats with use. When a player dies, they suffer a 'death penalty', which reduces their stats; penalties are worse for self-destructing magic than for simply getting killed. Of course, to SAO survivors, a game where you can die is too easy.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Lisbeth, Yui, and Silica, who all appear in Volume 2 during the 2-year span of the SAO incident, make their comeback in Volume 3 and Volume 4, still retaining their jobs: Silica is still a beast tamer, Lisbeth is still a blacksmith, and Yui is still an AI.
  • Thinker, leader of ALF, who was the Badass in Distress in Volume 2, appears at the end of Volume 4, along with his assistant/wife Yuriel.
• Continuity Snarl: The video games have a whole bunch of these. See the entry on this page for more details.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Out of all the countless people he could have met, Kirito just happens to Crash-Into Hello his sister the very first time he logs into the MMORPG ALfheim Online. Not that either of them know it at the time... which turns out not to be coincidence: the server registered the two different logins from the same location and thought they were the same person, so it moved Kirito to Leafa.
  • Of all the handguns Death Gun could possibly have been wielding, he has the exact same model of gun that traumatized Sinon. As with the above example, this is not a coincidence — Kyouji, who's involved in the scheme, has a twisted obsession with the incident, so he chose that weapon to be Death Gun's weapon of choice.
  • The first person Kirito decides to ask for help in GGO just happens to be Sinon, female protagonist of the arc, the top sniper in GGO, and one of Death Gun's targets with the villain being who Kirito is hunting.
  • Played straight with the climax for the Phantom Bullet arc; Kyouji just happens to aim his syringe at a still-connected electrode from his heart monitor.
• Cool Code of Source/Matrix Raining Code: The anime intro scene to the Aincrad arc starts with something between these two. It's really a pretty cool effect.
• Cool Helmet: A few GGO players sport these, like Death Gun and Pale Rider.
• Corporate Conspiracy: Nobuyuki Sugou, the director of RECT Inc.'s research institute, hijacks the minds of 300 of the SAO victims (including his then-fiance Asuna) and traps them in his own game ALFheim Online to conduct experiments on human subjugation via full dive technology, in addition to attempting to take over RCT Progress Inc. by marrying Asuna while she is unconscious. His ambition is to become a god in real life, just as he is in ALO.
• Corrupted Data: Depending on how you look at it, how Kirito lost nearly all of his Aincrad items or how he kept his stats and one particularly important item when he started ALO. Also, Yui theorizes this might be why he landed where he did when starting ALO instead of in his race's hometown.
• Cosmic Deadline: In general for the Aincrad arc, the plot undergoes long time jumps in which many floors at once will be skipped, but the plot abruptly and with little forewarning leaps straight to the conclusion after the defeat of Skull Reaper. This is partly because the light novel from which it was adapted started just before the Gleam Eyes battle, and covered Episode 8-14, except for the Yui arc from 11-12.

• Crapsaccharine World:
  • The world looks relatively pleasant and bright on the outlook, but at the same time there are very shady executives and scientists who are more than willing to use extremely shady methods to achieve their goals, as well as serial killers who use the VRMMOs to target and kill people in real life, and that's before factoring in the SAO Incident, which led more than 10,000 people trapped in the game for years and only around 6,000 making it out alive. Throw in a new secret Arms Race to develop an advanced Artificial Intelligence for use in warfare, and it becomes harder to see this world as wholly peaceful.
  • The Underworld, or at least the Human Realm. It's a virtual reality simulator in which the Fluctlights living there are literally incapable of breaking the law, known as the Taboo Index, so not only is there no murder, but people don't even litter. But High Ranking Nobles, who the Index favours heavily, can abuse loopholes in the rules to cause harm to others should they so desire, while defying these laws for any reason, even accidentally, are punished with death and it doesn't discriminate in regards to age. The civilized lands are ruled by a sociopathic tyrant, and the armies of darkness lie in wait outside of civilization's borders, preparing to strike. Unleash Blading and Alicization Lycoris make this worse with the implication that along with minor invasions from the Dark Territory, there are also monsters roaming around that can attack and kill other people, and only those with combat-related Callings, occupations effectively forced upon you from a young age, have the proper training to combat them while most others are completely defenceless. And while Quinella's death and Kirito taking over as head of the Human Unification Council leads to a lot of these issues being mitigated, such as the laws being reworked to show less bias towards Nobility and even the Dark Territory becoming more peaceful, there are many disgruntled former nobles who are trying to re-establish the former status quo and conspiracies and other darker forces trying to re-instigate conflict and war.
• Crazy-Prepared: Not only did Kayaba anticipate nearly everything in creating SAO. But this also extends to ensuring that not even the authorities in real life could do anything to intervene.
• Creepy Crosses: Not physically, but Death Gun crosses himself before he shoots his victims with his handgun to kill them in both GGO and the real world. Kirito later theorizes that this gesture masks the fact that Death Gun is actually checking his wristwatch so he can sync up shooting the player's avatar with one of his two real-world cohorts injecting the player with a drug that stops their heart and kills them.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Kirito's group of friends in ALO is nearly completely devoid of magic, outside a few support spells from Asuna, Leafa and Silica. This leads to problems against physical damage-resistant/immune enemies, where they must rely on Sword Skills' elemental effects, all of which have recovery lag times. They're aware of the problem, but after going through SAO, can't conceive of fighting without their weapons.
• Critical Existence Failure: Happens when a character dies in any of the games.
  • The game itself downplays this — taking too much damage may cause a player to lose a part of their body, but it's just a status effect and it's automatically healed after few minutes.
• Cross Player: VRMMORPGs using the NerveGear and Amusphere avert this, as the player's body is scanned into the system to form the avatar (degree of customization varies with each game). SAO's pre-alpha testing found that full immersion and genderswapping didn't really mix comfortably, and that after a significant amount of time logged in, male players began to experience anxiety over the lack of... essential equipment.
  • That said, as Episode 1 and a line in the light novel show, it's still possible. It just doesn't have good longterm effects, hence why Kayaba disabled this option when kicking off the death game.
  • Played with in the Gun Gale Online arc: a glitch causes Kirito's avatar to appear as an incredibly rare avatar that is mistaken for female by most players. It's actually a male avatar, but Kirito nonetheless learns to play the confusion over his gender in-game to his advantage.
• Crosshair Aware: A major mechanic of Gun Gale Online is that players can see where an opponent is aiming a split-second before the bullet actually fires, allowing players to Dodge the Bullet and, in Kirito's case, Parrying Bullets.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: The first episode of the Aincrad Arc is titled "The World of Swords". The episode in which Kirito first enters Alfheim Online is titled "The Land of Faeries." The first episode of the Phantom Bullet Arc is titled "The World of Guns."
• Cue the Falling Object: SAO has a unique spin on this when Kirito shatters Lisbeth's finest blade on his Elucidator. The fallen object doesn't prompt anything; it's after the sword tip shatters and fades out that Lisbeth screams, realizing what happened.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In Volume 2, Kirito vs orange guild Titan's Hand. He doesn't even bother to attack them, because he regenerates health faster than they can harm him.
  • Also in Volume 2, Asuna against a group of thugs from the Army.
  • Kirito versus Sugou after the latter has been stripped of GM powers. Combined with Eye Scream and Tranquil Fury.
  • Kirito easily defeats his first opponent in the Bullet of Bullets tournament qualifier round in Episode 5 of Season 2. Unfortunately this also draws the attention of Death Gun, who then asks him if he's the real deal after witnessing the fight, and seeing a "Kirito" using a sword to win the battle.
• Cut Short: Several of the manga adaptations were unceremoniously axed:
  • Project Alicization was canned after 30 chapters, with the last chapter being a heavily rushed conclusion to the Central Cathedral arc and the battle with Quinella and the Sword Golem. A brief epilogue hastily summarized the events of War of Underworld. The author's afterword implies that the cancellation was due to the fact that the magazine the manga was serialized in (Dengeki Bunko Magazine) was discontinued.
  • Alicization Lycoris was cancelled after only 16 chapters and still early in the story. Like the above, it's also likely the reason for the cancellation was due to the magazine it was serialized in (Dengeki PS Magazine) being discontinued.
  • Alternative: Gun Gale Online was cancelled after only covering the first Squad Jam (Volume 1 of the light novels). The author, Tadadi Tamori, made some comments on his Twitter that he made this decision for personal reasons.
  • Progressive: Canon of the Golden Rule was cancelled by its author Mugetsu after only publishing 10 chapters for a little over a year from March 30, 2021 to April 30, 2022. He was quite specific in his announcement of the finale chapter that this was not because of editorial pressure or some executive's decision, but because he felt that the fans were not enjoying the work. He also indicated that it was difficult to accept other manga job offers due to the effort that working on Canon demanded.
• Cyberpunk: Albeit one that beats with a Heroic Fantasy heart; Sword Art Online is after all, an adventure into the digital world set 20 Minutes into the Future where the nature of reality and the human soul is explored and questioned via digital technology, even if conflicts are almost always ultimately resolved through swordsmanship.

D

• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • In his duel with Kayaba in Episode 14, Kirito attempts to fight without Sword Skills, because Kayaba knows all the counters to any Sword Skill he'd try to use. He accidentally triggers a Sword Skill that Kayaba easily blocks and counters.
  • Kirito also gets this in Episode 15 after his sparring match with Suguha, where he tries to return his shinai to a nonexistent back scabbard. He also tried to use a Sword Skill, with obvious results.
  • Continues into season 2. When he first buys his photon sword and tests it out, he practices with his trademark flurry of blows before trying to put it into a nonexistent back scabbard. Later, he does this after winning his first fight in the Bullet of Bullets tournament and notes "I did it again."
• Dark and Troubled Past: Another reason why Kirito avoids guilds and playing with other people is a result of blaming himself for the death of his past guild.
• Darker and Edgier: How do you make a series about a Virtual Reality MMORPG playing Your Mind Makes It Real to its logical conclusion (i.e., The Most Dangerous Video Game) darker after that?
  • How about making the next villain an insane sociopath who intends to rape the hero's girlfriend/in-game wife, who is also the former's real-life fiancée, after he's done with her mind.
  • Then right after that having a protagonist who shot a bank robber to death as a child and was ostracized as a result?
  • The small story arcs after that are Lighter and Softer, but then we have the hero almost dying and, to save his life, being placed in a hyer-realistic virtual world where time moves faster than in the real world, and when people die, it's bloody and gruesome? And that's saying nothing of the attempted hostile takeover of said virtual world from the real world by two serial murderes!
• The Darkness Before Death: In the final episode of Alicization, Eugeo calls out for Kirito before he succumbs to his wounds. His eyes were glazed over, indicating he couldn't see anymore. Kirito was by his side the entire time and held him in his arm as he finally passed away, saying he saw him "sparkling in the darkness, just like the stars" through his Reflectionless Useless Eyes.
• Dark Fantasy: Alicization arc is the closest one for the series to have, with Underworld being filled with many monster like Goblins and Giants from the Dark Territory that outright grotesque and violent and the Human Realm while seemingly looks peaceful on the outside, is actually full of hidden corruptions and crimes everywhere.
• Dead Man Writing: Sachi recorded a letter via crystal to Kirito to be delivered on Christmas, months after she died. A major Tear Jerker moment, especially when she starts humming a portion of "Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer".
• Death by Irony: During SAO's first day in the Light Novel, Kirito unexpectedly parties with another Beta Tester named Cooper for a luck-based quest. But once Kirito gets the quest item, Cooper aggro's the monsters (Nepent) then goes into hiding. Kirito silently praises him for the MPK tactic, but finds a flaw in the plan. Some monsters also use senses other than sight, enabling the Nepents to find Cooper's hiding spot, killing him.
• Death Is Cheap: Played with. Death in-game is death in real life in SAO. In the other SAO-inspired MMOs, while it's not going to kill you in real life, it is implied to be Continuing is Painful.
• Death Seeker: Kirito goes through a phase of this after his first guild is destroyed.
  • His actions at the end of the Aincrad arc could be interpreted this way as well. When Heathcliff/Kayaba offers Kirito the chance to duel him and clear the game early, Asuna begs Kirito not to, but he goes through with it anyway. He then says what sounds a lot like Last Words to Agil and Klein, and asks Kayaba to make sure Asuna can't commit suicide if he should lose, almost as if he was expecting to die.
• Declaration of Protection:
  • Kirito promises this to the new guild he joins, the Black Cats, and especially to Sachi. Unfortunately when they're ambushed by a very large group of monsters, he's only able to save himself, despite his efforts to protect them.
  • This trope kicks in again in Episode 9 after Asuna does a Leeroy Jenkins to save some players from the floor 74 boss. Kirito starts to remember his previous failure, and does everything he can to keep anyone else from dying pointlessly again. The boss is wiping out members of the Army and he, Asuna, and Klein aren't enough to defeat it. Wanting to prevent another Black Cats-like incident from ever happening again, he's forced to utilize his secret skill, dual wielding, and goes toe-to-toe with the boss, defeating it with only a sliver of HP left. Asuna cries on his shoulder for a long time at the thought of having almost lost him.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Asuna is this, initially wanting to beat the game by any means necessary and get back to her life as it was. Being around Kirito, and his by-comparison lackadaisical attitude, helps her take in a lot of the beauty of Aincrad, and fall in love with the virtual world, a place where she is free to be who she truly is.
• Depending on the Artist:
  • The physical appearance of Cat Pina varies between the manga and Hollow Fragment.
  • The Norse Gods look very different in Lost Song compared to Memory Defrag.
• Descended Creator: In-universe example: Akihiko Kayaba played SAO as Heathcliff.
• Deep-Immersion Gaming: The devices used allow this. Unfortunately the immersion is too deep in SAO: You die in real life once your avatar dies.
  • Kirito strongly suspects that various militaries are interested in VRMMO gaming because it provides a substitute to real world training due to the immersion factor.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After Kirito defeats General Eugene in a duel, he wins his respect and Eugene decides to call off the attack on the Sylph/Cait-Sith treaty signing. He leaves saying that he would like to cross blades with Kirito again the future.
• Despair Event Horizon: The leader of the guild that Kirito joins commits suicide by falling off a balcony over a very high cliff upon hearing that all of his friends were killed in an ambush. Though Kirito doesn't kill himself, the loss of the people he promised to help protect weighs heavily on him.
• Deus ex Machina:
  • In the Extra Edition, where Kirito retells what occurred during the first and second arc, the person he is telling the story to suspects that it was the will of Kayaba that had Asuna and Kirito not die. Meaning, he might've interfered with the game's coding so as to not send a signal that they died so the NerveGear wouldn't fry their brains.
    • Although, there is a possible alternate explanation: We know from the revival item that there's a 10 second delay between a player's death and the deletion of his/her avatar (and subsequent real world death). It may have been the author's intent that Kirito defeated Heathcliff within 10 seconds of Asuna's "death", while the system's "game cleared" flag had priority over the "avatar deletion" flag, thereby saving them on a technicality.
  • The second arc has a modernized classical example. Kayaba grants Kirito Super-Admin access through the Heathcliff username. Given the setting, it's similar to a god granting a hero divine power.
• Difficulty Spike: invoked
  • SAO players note that Aincrad dungeons and monsters are a lot more difficult since being ported to ALO, compared to the original SAO incarnation.
  • In SAO, there is a massive Difficulty Spike for the Floor Bosses from the 74th Floor and onwards. Not only are they a lot stronger than previous Floor Bosses, but their rooms are sealed from the outside and are Crystal Traps. This means that crystals like healing and teleportation are useless, making it impossible to escape and thus obtain intel and making each fight a battle to the death. On the 75th Floor Boss, they lose so many people that Kirito takes a massive risk on testing his suspicions about Heathcliff, because there is a high chance they won't be able to make it to the 100th floor.
  • It's speculated by the characters that every 25 floors (25th, 50th, 75th) have an especially difficult boss that is far stronger than a "normal" boss should be.
• Digital Avatar: Nearly everyone who uses the Full Dive technology, especially VRMMO players.
• Disappears into Light: The death animation in SAO.
  • In ALO, depending on the in-game race, different elemental effects before leaving behind a "Remain Light" which also disappears after a minute.
• Distressed Woodchopping: The Alicization arc has Eugeo being assigned to be a woodcutter as his Calling and the tree he's supposed to cut down is the Gigas Cedar (which hasn't been able to be cut down for over 300 years of woodsmen hacking away at it). After getting traumatized by Alice getting kidnapped, which he views as My Greatest Failure, he channeled his grief into spending the rest of his life hacking away at the impossible task, until Kirito got dropped into the Underworld and meets him and not only pulls him out of his funk, but eventually devises a more efficient way to get the tree cut.
• Diving Save:
  • Pina performs one to save Silica, dying in the process. This kickstarts the events of "The Black Swordsman".
  • Kirito does this to save Asuna from Kuradeel, after his faked surrender catches her off-guard.
  • Later, Asuna takes a mortal blow from Kayaba to protect Kirito, which eventually gives him the final push to defeat Kayaba.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Haruka Tomatsu, Asuna's voice actress, performs ED1 of Season 1 ("Yume Sekai"), OP2 of II ("Courage"), and OP1 of War of Underworld ("Resolution").
• Downer Ending: The second volume of the light novels focuses on side stories that happen during Aincrad (correlating with episodes 3-4, 7, and 11-12 of the anime). The last two stories are Morning Dew Girl^note The story of the AI Yui, ending in her being erased from the system. and Red Nosed Reindeer^note The story of the Black Cats of the Full Moon and their untimely demise.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Happens to Gabriel after his death at Kirito's hands. Alice, the Alice he murdered when he was a child, shows up to personally escort him down.
• Driven to Suicide: Happens to a few people:
  • The leader of the Black Cats of the Full Moon, after the guild members are annihilated and Kirito reveals he was a beta tester. Kirito, himself, contemplates this for a bit after the guild's destruction.
  • Yuuki's mother nearly falls to this, after she's diagnosed with AIDS from contaminated blood.
• Dual Wielding: Only Kirito gets this skill in SAO. He later recreates his style from sheer effort and virtual muscle memory in ALO.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Kirito in GGO. He accidentally (at least initially) abuses this to get help from the nearby Sinon, and later starts to use it deliberately to get help from other players.
• Duel Boss: The Final Boss of SAO, Heathcliff (AKA Akihiko Kayaba), is fought by Kirito and Kirito alone.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Kirito displays some in Episode 3 after he manages to retrieve the rumored revival item. Unfortunately it's of no use to him, and he gives it to Klein. Said item has to be used within 10 seconds of a player's death, and Sachi has been dead for months by this point.
• Dungeon Bypass: When Kirito and Asuna are looking for a house on Floor 22 to buy, they stumble onto Argo and a Wizard of Oz-inspired Quest. Since their levels are miles above that floor's, the three of them use shortcuts like jumping on balconies that they aren't supposed to be able to reach.
• Dungeon Crawling: A prerequisite for clearing each level of Aincrad. Each level's stairway-dungeon has 20 floors, and the final floor has the boss that must be defeated to clear the level.
• Dynamic Entry:
  • Kirito's crash landing when he first meets Leafa, which causes the pursuing Salamanders to halt their attempt to kill Leafa and re-target to him.
  • Asuna does this in her big damn heroes moment. Kirito describes her arrival as a red and white wind.
  • Kirito does one in the real world in episode 13 of season 2 after a crazed man Kyouji, with a mix of Crazy Jealous Guy and If I Can't Have You… attacks Sinon in her apartment.

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