WMG / Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online is a Lighter and Softer alternate universe of Berserk in the form of a videogame:

• Kirito and Guts are the Black Swordsmen who travel alone for the most part till later.
  • Both were in a guild/merc group until the death of a member of said guild/merc group (Sachi/Gambino)
  • Both heroes have to travel to another place to save their lovers. (Alfheim/Elfhelm)
• Asuna is a super feminine version of Casca, both being upper class fighters in their organization.
  • The former was nearly raped, but the latter actually was, in front of their lovers
• Heathcliff is Griffith pre-Face–Heel Turn. (Knights of Blood Oath and Band of the Hawks)
  • Both defeated the heroes of their respective story, and had them join them.
  • In turn, Sugou/Oberon is Griffith/ Femto post-Face–Heel Turn

The time acceleration technology in the Alicization arc is the foundation for Brain Burst in Accel World

• Given the timeframes mentioned, and the fact that Accel World takes place some time in the futureish or so.
  • Add the Alicitazion Arc there and were near to the truth.
    • Well... The latest, as of now, 22nd episode of Accel World makes mention of Nerve Gear and Brain Implant Chip as examples of obsolete Full Dive tech that made Augmented Reality possible, the later of which is mentioned by Kirito in interlude of Volume 9.
  • It's confirmed that STL speeds up the mind by the same amount as Brain Burst (1000 times), and can erase memories that people gained inside it. In the OVA included with the Accel World videogame, the Accel Assault server also looks like it's made out of Light Cubes.
  • The connection has been made even more explicit as Enhanced Armaments and the Incarnate System are present in Underworld.

Yui and Star Sapphire are the same person.

• Pixies anyone?

For that matter, Kirito and Leyfon Alsief are related.

• Badass hero who has multiple swords, hides his skill, tries to atone, and has a harem. It's all there.

Akihiko Kayabaya is/was affiliated with the Templars/Abstergo.

• Fulldiving technology is similar to the Animus, the only difference is the compactness and how they are used. Both are virtual reality systems, and the users seem to have some skills transfer to the real world (bleeding effect).
• As Heathcliff, the uniforms of his guild the "Knights of Blood" is vaguely similar to the uniform of the Knights Templar.

"PoH", the leader of the "Laughing Coffins", will return in a future arc.

• His subordinates, "XaXa" and "Johnny Black", have already made a reappearance, so it seems natural that PoH will turn up as well.
• PoH's return and final fate have already been detailed by Kawahara in the web novels. They'll be published soon enough.

The last scene of the anime episode 11 is a metaphor for something else.

• In the scene some Front soldiers have cornered some young children and their caretaker in a blind alley demanding money for taxes but "that's not all they want". The soldiers also demand their victim relinquish their equipment, "Everything, including your armor. Every last thing you have."
• Considering the circumstances (especially since the kids aren't wearing armor), and that clothing is equipment which can be equipped and unequipped, "armor" could be understood as a euphamism for "clothes" which would mean it wasn't just a shakedown - Kirito and Asuna saved them from being raped.
• There is no rape by force in SAO. The Ethic Code don't allow it (that's why Kirito and Asuna have to turn it off before getting it on). Even with a stolen kiss, one touch on the warning window that pops up and the criminal is sent to Black Iron Prison for the rest of the game. Rape by duress, on the other hand, became a possibility as soon as it became a death game. They simply had to make the threat: "Turn off the Ethic Code or die," and see who was willing to comply. There are even ways to harrass players within safe zones, as Asuna notes in Volume 2.

Sword Art Online and Accel World are set in the same universe with .hack//

• Virtual reality MMORPGs with cool gadgets of its time?

Kirito and Asuna's pseudo reality warping abilities

There are a few moments in Aincrad where it's described that Kirito or Asuna so things that shouldn't be possible in the system of Sword Art Online. There is some speculation of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane, but in reality it is simply a function of the Nerve Gear, albeit an unsuspected one. In times of great worry or duress, it's been shown the human body can do things far beyond normal physiological limits. Since the Nerve Gear works by intercepting signals meant for the body and transfers them to the avatar, it only makes sense that these "override" mental signals would transfer as well.

Future plots and stories:

ALO and GGO will connect with each other.

• At the end of Fairy Dance Lyfa remembers Kirito talking about ALO connecting with another VRMMO, making a nexus. GGO will join this nexus.
  • If you look at the maps of ALO◊ and ISL Ragnarok◊ where the BoB took place, they look similar in certain areas.

There will be prequel stories/novels covering the adventures of Suguha/Lyfa in ALO and Shino/Sinon in GGO before Kirito joined each respectful game.

They would flesh-out more on the other characters like Lady Sakuya, Recon, Sigurd, Dyne, and Spiegel.

We will learn what the other Unique Skills from SAO are.

We already know 2 of 10 them, Holy Sword and Dual Blades; the other 8 were not elaborated on. When ALO implemented Sword Skills it is said that 10 were removed and there were 10 Unique Skills.

• Actually, Reki Kawahara himself has already said what four of the other eight where.
  • Infinite Spear: A special skill revolving around the close and range combat based on lance Sword Skills.
  • Shurikenjutsu: A ninja inspired skill enabling the user to now use throwing stars as a form of ranged combat.
  • Battoujutsu: The "Sword Drawing" skill. A samurai based skill based on delivering a fatal blow with one drawing slash.
  • Darkness Blade: Nothing really has been said about what it's actually suppose to be, though it's rumored to complement Heathcliff's Holy Sword.

The SAO game contains an early version of the Incarnate System

At the end of volume 1 (episode 14 in the anime), this is how Asuna and Kirito were able to cancel a paralysis condition and delay their avatar's death, respectively.

• In volume 10 it's confirmed that the Incarnate System exists in Underworld, which was built on the Seed Engine developed from SAO.

An American-based company will cause trouble late into the story.

• Sugou mentioned selling mind-controlling technology to American company when he first met Kirito.
• In GGO arc, Kikuoka mentioned that nobody is quite sure where Gun Gale Online come from. It's some mysterious western company named Zasker.
• At the beginning of Underworld arc, Sinon tell us that she fought against Subtilizer, a strange American player in a GGO tournament. The weird part is Subtilizer said creepy things to Sinon, unusually great combat awareness and the fact that there should be no US entry in Japan-based tournament, as servers are now separated for each region.
• The company could be Private Military Contractors hired to take cutting-edge tech.
  • Confirmed. It's not a company, but a branch of the CIA which tries to break into Rath, disable Project Alicization and steal Alice's (who is the most advanced) fluctlight. In addition, Subtilizer, AKA Gabriel Miller, is the leader of the CIA assault-though he plans to go rogue. In fact they even have contacts within the Japanese Navy who are resentful it will lead to a loss of jobs for soldiers, and move their escort out, allowing the assault-foreshadowed in the prologue/interlude of Volume 13.

Akihiko Kayaba is still alive, in hiding and watching/helping Kirito and his friends from afar.

• in the anime it is revealed that upon his defeat in SAO he preformed a high power microwave scan on him self (basically the method by which SAO players were killed on avatar death but with the nervegears detectors active) and copied his brain it to the internet and he does show up to give Kirito admin privileges in ALO and the world seed

SOA takes place in a world where the Virtual Adepts won.

• The goal of the adepts was to create a world built around virtual reality, the digital web and augmented reality technologies. All of which are growing dramatically in spite of the negative press generated by the story arcs. The VRMMORPG boom is one step in the Adepts plan to win the final battle for Reality, allowing people direct control over the world they live in.
• Also this means that Kirito is likely a young mage or sorcerer in the VA paradigm explaining some of his system bending abilities, and Kayaba is a VA Master or possibly a Marauder.

Sachi is alive in a manner of speaking.

• We know the Nerve Gear kills its victims with a high-powered scan of the brain. We also know that Kayaba used this feature for his ascension into the digital realm after his death. In the novels his assistant claims that the process had roughly 1-in-1000 odds of working, but how were those odds determined? Simple: the process was tested on the SAO players. Of the 4000+ victims of Sword Art Online, four are still alive in the same state that Kayaba is now. We've seen one of them: Griselda's ghost.
  • Confirmed. Sachi is still alive in a sense, or rather left another last message for Kirito. It's been explored in 'The Day After' and that also included Griselda's ghost phenomenon.

Full-Dive technology is The Ancient Precursor of neural interfacing/capsuleer technology in EVE Online.

It somehow makes sense that way, seeing what Kayaba had been able to do (high-powered scan to convert himself into digital data) - the reverse of that, although extremely difficult, seems plausible - it is the foundation for clone-jumping technology in EVE that keeps capsuleers immortal. In the same sense, the capability of controlling one's avatar in-game by using the brain can easily be transmuted to 'controlling a spaceship with nothing but your mind through a neural interface/link'. It is also stated that the ancient civilizations that existed in wormholes e.g. Sleepers were masters of virtual reality.

The fact that Kirito is an orphan is a plot point and the identity of his parents will be explored later on.

• Besides a convenient way to make Kirito and Suguha cousins rather than true siblings, Kirito's parents are probably important people who will be explored later in the story. Probably co-researchers with Kayaba or something...
• Kirito's already a lot like Spiderman, so they might as well go the full Expy route and make Kirito's father a researcher who was killed because he found out about Kayaba's plans years before they could be implemented.

We haven't seen the last of PoH

So far two high-ranking members of the Laughing Coffin have made a comeback. I see no reason why their leader, the game's most feared Hero Killer, should not make one as well.

• Confirmed. See the spoiler in character page.

It is revealed that since entering SAO, Kirito has been his own version of The Truman Show.

Note: that this guess is exclusively for the anime adaptation and not the original light novels because it only makes sense for the former. ^note  I.E. The "huge numbers of girls" don't exist in volume 1 and Kirito's "unexplainable ability to be far more powerful" doesn't exist in volume 1 either and is given an explanation in volume 2 .

The Beta Testers for SAO weren't actually there to beta test the game. Unknown to the players, it was actually an audition process, for one "lucky" player to become the star of their own series. Kayaba, likely, was the producer of the show, selecting Kirito personally. By the time the game proper started, the game was able to happen at the same time, on another server. Kirito, and 10000 actors were all placed into the series we saw. This in turn would explain all the aspects of the "game" that didn't quite make sense. It's not a game at all but a tv show and so it was working according to different rules.

Kirito's unexplainable ability to be far more powerful than anyone else? The plot said so. The huge number of girls who all clamor for our hero? Potential love interests to see which one had the most chemistry before being written as Kirito's girlfriend. Asuna got the highest ratings, so she was chosen. None of the players actually died, they were just written out of the show for dramatic effect. The final clash with Kayaba? Season finale. And the whole plot of ALF? New season after a Retool.

• Funnily enough, Kikuoka makes a near-explicit reference to said movie when describing Project Alicization/Underworld to Asuna.

Sword Art Online (or one of the other games) will allow married couples to create AI children.

Kirito will become a police officer specializing in investigating internet crimes.

The fact that they make VR helmets that can kill people if they die in a game means that the police force will need to investigate a whole new brand of crimes that they don't know how to investigate. Enter Kirito, who has been doing this for years to save his own life and the people he loves. Public Security Section 9 now has a new potential recruit.

The guardians in ALO were Alfs.

Just because no player could ever turn into one, doesn't mean they weren't in the game.

All the guys that played as women in SAO where stuck in the female underwear

It's said that when you switch cloths underwear shows for a brief moment. It's said that you don't actually put on or take off cloths like normal. The underwear is meant to be there for modesty. It's said you can't take it off. It's said in the books that people's clothes didn't change and the anime explicitly showed this to be true. So logically a large number of men, specifically ones who started the game as G.I.R.L.s would still be have that as the default.

Kirito and Asuna survived the final battle of SAO because Akihiko Kayaba spared them.

He wrote it into the game that instead of killing the players ten seconds after their HP hit 0, anyone who was defeated during the final battle would not be killed until Kayaba won the battle, and tie goes to the players.

Ginta Toramizu was an SAO player.

He's obsessed with fantasy- could he really ignore the premiere of full-immersion gaming?

Red-nosed Reindeer was Kirito's confession to the families of the fallen Black Cats of the Full Moon.

That's why it's in Volume 2 and not Volume 1. Though it's set during the Aincrad Arc, it's actually Kirito telling the story after he got out to the families of his fallen comrades. He wants to confess his fatal omission and let them forgive him or take their revenge as they see fit.

Someone will pull a House of M on Kirito.

Some villain will kidnap Yui somehow, and from her memories extract enough information to create convincing replicas of the Black Cats of the Full Moon. When Kirito tries to rescue her, he ends up getting sucked into their illusion, which was the plan the whole time. In order to escape, he'll have to reject the illusions of a world where the Black Cats of the Full Moon never died.

The survivors of SAO meet up once a year to remember all they've been through together and the ones that didn't make it out.

Those who are old enough toast sake To Absent Friends.

SAO will get a video game for the PS4 that will allow you to play through the entire 75 or 100 floors.

Also, the Black Cats of the Full Moon side plot will allow for multiple endings, not only for the Romance Subplot but for the entirety of the game. Kirito will have the choice to join or not to join the Black Cats of the Full Moon, and if he joins them, the incident leading to their deaths will be avoidable. Not joining the Black Cats of the Full Moon or saving them will completely alter the course of the game.

• If that's the case, it could be the killer app for the Playstation VR (provided it's an MMO, and a good enough one that even non-fans of the series would like to play). Likewise, it could have a PC port, compatible with the Rift and Vive. Point is, the burgeoning VR market needs a good immersive game, like an MMO, and SAO could be the right IP for the job.

There was no violation of the program with anything Kirito or Asuna did.

Asuna breaking the dexterity limit? Kirito just miscalculated. Asuna freeing herself from paralysis? Kirito programmed that in while he was saving Yui. Kirito launching a final attack with his HP at 0? Players were always able to do that; the only difference is that Kirito knew about the 10 second grace period because of the events of Red Nosed Reindeer.

Akihiko Kayaba is Kirito's Evil Uncle.

Based on the fact that it's Kazuto and Suguha's mothers who are siblings, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that he wasn't born with the surname Kirigaya. He took on that name when his aunt and uncle took him in and raised him as their son. So are there any clues about Kirito's birth name? Well, after he hacked into a government website at the age of ten and discovered that he was adopted, he confronted his aunt about who his real parents were. After that happened, he started withdrawing himself into MMORPGs and almost completely avoiding Suguha. Akihiko Kayaba was an idol of his until he found out that Akihiko was a nutcase. Akihiko, in turn, seems unduly interested in Kirito. So what's Kirito's birth name? Kazuto Kayaba, son of Akihiko's older brother. Akihiko was the quiet genius of the family, whom Kirito wanted to be just like until he found out that quiet genius was hiding criminal insanity.

• Afterall, Kirito mentions in the SAO arc that, after he refused to be trained in kendo by his uncle (instead withdrawing), he became mildly abusive, berating him constantly until Suguha stepped in. Cue with Owen Lars in Star Wars who, without being bluntly abusive toward Luke, tried constantly to prevent him from leaving Tatooine and forbid him explicitly to see "Ben" Kenobi. The parallel is striking: Kirito's aunts was trying to pressure Kirito into physical achievements to keep him away from the digital world that turned his father insane, much like Owen Lars was trying to keep Luke away from the Jedi to avoid him from suffer Anakin's fate.
  • On that note, the reason that the WMG is that Akihiko is Kirito's uncle and not his real father is that Akihiko was 14 when Kirito was born, and that's just too squicky to contemplate.

Suguha and Shinichi will get together eventually.

He certainly wants them to be more than just friends, and she seems like she'd be interested if she ever manages to get over Kirito.

Kayaba never intended for SAO to be cleared or for anyone to die.

He was actually hoping that everybody would give up on clearing the game, at least after they found out he was the final boss, and that everyone would be content to spend the rest of their natural lives in Aincrad. Why else would he write the game so that he either dies in the end or kills everybody unless they choose to stay in Aincrad? Why else destroy Aincrad when he is defeated? The death game was just his way of choosing virtual reality over real life and preventing anyone else from choosing to go back to the real world.

Kirito saved himself against Heathcliff, thanks to Klein.

• While we never know what Klein did with the special device Kirito obtained (in vain, to save Sachi) that could revive someone within 10 seconds of death, we might see Klein saving the device for this very moment—presuming he, like Asuna, can pull off the ability to move while paralyzed.

Sugou wanted Kirito to log into ALO.

While Sugou's choice to taunt Kirito at the start of the ALO Arc, telling him of his villainous project and giving him a week to stop him in-game before he can marry Asuna and take full control of RECTO and the digital universe may seem your average villain rant, and while Sugou becomes increasingly Ax-Crazy during the entire arc, he may, afterall, have shown some wisdom.He knows, because he explicitly mentions that in a conversation with Asuna's father, that Kirito is the "Hero of Aincrad", the one beat Heathcliff/Kayaba and pulled impossible stunts during the whole Aincrad caper. His brain could have been a nice addition to his experiments in mind control applied to the digital world: Kirito is the best specimen one could ever hope to find. However, when Kirito started again to pull his stunts against him, Sugou blew his remaining sanity.

• There could have been another reason. Sugou wanted to beat Kayaba, and prove himself superior. But since he's dead, he's settled for the next bst thing: Beat the guy who did beat Kayaba.

Keita had a crush on Sachi.

It is implied that the other Black Cats were Keita's only friends, which would explain why he killed himself after learning that the others died because of Kirito's silence. But what really crushed him was the death of the Girl Next Door that he had secretly loved for years, and she never knew.

Kirito is an Unreliable Narrator.

He remembers his feelings from the past as what he currently wants to remember them as. His memories of declining to escort Fuurinkazan on day 1 were colored by his experiences with the Black Cats of the Full Moon. He says that Silica reminds him of Suguha based on how he chose to remember her, not how she actually looks or acts. He downplays his relationship with Sachi after falling in love with Asuna because those memories are both painful and an unwanted interference to his current relationship.

Kirito and Asuna are dead, and everything after their conversation with Kayaba Akihiko is a shared hallucination

Because it's not a WMG page if someone hasn't suggested that the series is All Just a Dream.

Kayaba had accomplices inside the government.

He was able to bribe some officials to look the other way during safety testing.

Pina is really an AI like Yui instead of an NPC pet.

Silica mentions in the Caliber story that evil-god type monsters are impossible to tame and control. Taking this line further we can guess that the harder something is to tame, the harder it is to control. Kirito mentions (also in Caliber) that there is always a chance that a pet will ignore a command from its master. Pina as a dragon is rare enough that taming her earned Silica a well known affectionate nickname amongst the mid-level SAO community, it is also mentioned that no one else managed to tame a feathery dragon before or after Silica did it. Putting those together we can assume that Pina should be an extremely moody and hard to control pet, yet Kirito comments that he has never seen Pina ignore a command.

Add to this that Pina does not behave like a NPC pet should. In Mothers Rosario someone mentions that Pina's habit of cuddling with Silicas friends (and Yui) is completely atypical for ingame pets.

Putting all those oddities together it is safe to conclude that Pina is not a typical NPC pet controlled by simple routines. Instead she is an advanced AI, albeit one with common house pet level intelligence compared to Yui's mostly human mind.

Suguha was flat-chested before the SAO incident.

There has to be some reason that Kirito would tell Silica that she looks like Suguha, since by the time SAO is over, she doesn't in the slightest.

• The comment Kirito makes during the Leafa ending of Hollow Fragment (said comment being "Oh right, your breasts have grown bigger") adds a lot of weight to this, and throughout some conversations (and even some moments with Strea) it's clear Kirito is NOT used to situations involving his sister's chest size.
• Not to mention some flashbacks and Suguha's debut in the anime seem to make her seem more flat-chested compared to her current self two years later, probably to reflect how Suguha was originally flat-chested in the web novels.
• A bit of meta proof: Reki Kawahara originally intended for Suguha to have a smaller chest. It was his publisher that suggested giving her the large rack she has in canon.

In the video game continuity, Yuuki has been cured of her AIDS as of Hollow Realization.

• This is likely how Yuuki will also continue to be playable in further games in the video game continuity, the fear of her dying hasn't been postponed, but entirely eliminated. It's stated by the time Yuuki began using the Medicuboid, she'd been infected with Cytomegalovirus and nontuberculous mycobacteria, and therefore had three different viruses in her. There may have actually been a cure for AIDS around the time of Lost Song, but it couldn't be administered because she didn't only have AIDS. Luckily, in Lost Song's version of the Mother's Rosario arc, Yuuki says her virus is getting weaker, and this allowed her immune system to fight the additional infections until they became small enough or outright destroyed, allowing doctors to administer the AIDS cure. In Hollow Realization, she mentions she had to go to the hospital and she had to live there in the Medicuboid sterile room to avoid additional infections, and being able to leave likely means she's been cured and only has to visit until it's clear her body has fully recovered from her 16 year battle with AIDS.

Kirito talks in his sleep.

• Which is how Sachi found out he was a high-level beta tester.
  • Jossed, while sleeping together she saw his status screen without him knowing, and it mentioned what level he really was.

[[spoiler:Kyouji wasn't planning to kill Shino.

He wasn't in her apartment when she logged out, because he never broke in in the first place. He was convinced Shino would love him once she got over her gun issues. He was planning to run away with her, set the place on fire to fake their deaths, skip the country, move to America under an assumed name, marry Shino and start a new life without the stress of living up to his parents' expectations.

Once the Alicization Arc ends, there will be another SAO survivor reunion.

At which point, we will be introduced to Thinker and Yulier's baby.

Season 2, Episode 16 will be titled "Return to the Land of Faeries."

To keep the Cross-Referenced Titles going.

• Jossed. It's titled, "The Queen of the Lake."

A future arc will be based around a series of hacking attacks.

Full Dive technology has already shown both its promise and its peril. There's copious amounts of information that could be gained by hacking into Amuspheres, and the prospect of being able to collect personal information and empty bank accounts while being able to verify that the victim is immersed in a game and therefore can't respond is just too alluring for hackers to ignore. That Full Dive technology can be used for murder is already known; a skilled enough hacker might well be able to override the Amusphere's safety mechanisms. Death Gun illustrated the potential of using personal information to break into the houses of people you know are logged in to a game and so won't be able to stop you or even notice you. Whether you want to commit a murder, a rape, or just rob the place, the victim is defenseless, and there's plenty of different ways to go about finding this information. Also, this arc will reveal secrets of Kirito's past: details about how his parents died, whether or not he's related to Kayaba, how he managed to hack into a government database at the age of ten, etc.

Po H was an Argus employee.

He knew what Kayaba was planning and got trapped in SAO on purpose just so he could have an outlet for his sadism.

Silica lied about her age.

According to the light novel, the Nerve Gear was supposed to disallow users under the age of 13. Thing is, there's no way for the nerve gear to verify that the user is indeed at least 13. Silica was 12 when she logged in to SAO, but she told her Nerve Gear that she was 13 so she wouldn't have to wait almost a whole year before she play, and the Nerve Gear couldn't tell the difference.

• Considering people do this all the time in real life, this is super likely.

Kirito's birthday will become a Significant Birth Date.

Kirito was born on the Feast of the Rosary, and one of the purposes of the Rosary is to fight a spiritual battle against evil.

In SAO, Asuna had a Unique Skill called "Act of Love"

In volume one, Asuna performs two seemingly impossible feats. The first is when she races to save Kirito from Kuradeel and the second time is when she takes a blow for Kirito in his second duel with Heathcliff despite being paralyzed. The fact that both of them happened in Kirito's defense is not a coincidence. She possessed one of the ten Unique Skills. Unlike Kirito and Heathcliff, this was a passive ability that allowed her to surpass the limitations of stats and status when defending her beloved. Like Kirito she would keep this a secret and for the same reason: she had no idea how she got it and didn't want to be hounded for it. The evidence for the guess is as follows:

• When Kirito asks how she arrived in time to save him from Kuradeel, she just smiles and says "It was an Act of Love."
• Heathcliff made her his Number Two, and, while she certainly deserves the position without a Unique Skill, if he were gathering the Unique Skill users, then it would make sense for him to make her part of his inner circle.
• Heathcliff is quite adamant about her being with Kirito. Notice that the conditions of the first duel end with them staying together regardless of who wins. (In fact, Kirito points this out.) He wants to make sure the KoB can handle the level 90 floors and so it makes sense that he'd want his Number Two to be capable of overcoming status aliments.
• Asuna's Disney Death also makes sense if she had such a skill. Her desire to say with her lover overrode the system's "fry the brain" command.

An SAO game will be made for the Oculus Rift.

Because honestly, that's too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Death Gun is actually Light Yagami.

Just look at his name which is also the name of his gun. It can't be a coincidence.

The reason Asuna Survived her death in SAO

Is because when Heathcliffe set it to where she couldn't kill herself in-game, it was actually set to where she just couldn't die when her hp hit zero, she was just stored somewhere else, so the nervegear didn't microwave her brain.

• Jossed, Asuna's avatar and consciousness was captured along with 299 other players before getting dragged/sent into Alfheim Online after the destruction of Sword Art Online and Aincrad.

Sugou could have chosen a different path, by playing with Kirito's mind and memories so he'd hate Asuna. thus breaking the young woman

Oberon's true intention for creating ALO was so he could manipulate human emotions right? An easy way to make Asuna submissive and meek was to change Kirito's feelings towards her from love to hate. Thus, she's demoralized and left with no choice but to marry Sugou because now Kazuto hates her.

The drop in quality in the second story arc of the anime is also Decade's fault.

• This isn't just a joke: SAO is actually an A.R version of the World of Decade. However, this world lacks a Kamen Rider, due to Tsukasa's SAO counterpart, Kibaou, choosing to play video games instead of pursuing a career as a photographer, which would lead him to become the SAO version of Decade. Therefore, it's not the presence of a Kamen Rider that causes this distortion, but rather, the ABSENCE of one.

Kayaba Akihiko was a Jumanji Survivor

2009 Tokyo; a bright yet overly imaginative 14 year old boy called Kayaba Akihiko hears mysterious drumbeats coming from a dark forgotten corner in the back of vintage game console store, on the last day of its closing down sale. He nonchalantly picks a moldy paper box from the creaky old shelf, and to his surprise the grey haired owner screamed “Take it! I thought I got rid of that evil thing! Have it for free! Just get it away from me!”

Akihiko shrugged, went home and blew the dust off the box, illustrated in the style of a 1950s American Jungle Adventure Novel like Tarzan, plugs the suspiciously-clean PlayStation One Console it into his room’s television, and shouts “I’ll be right down!” in response to being called for dinner...

...not knowing it would be the last time he would see his mother for 20 long years.

But moments later for Mrs Kayaba, her son lethargically stumbled to the dinner table, his once-bright and enthusiastic eyes replaced by the tired ones of man twice his age, weary with the ponderous burden of phyrtic victories, meaningless sacrifices, broken dreams and lost love. Akihiko mumbled “after all I did, I had to leave her behind, what was all that for.” Mrs Kayaba saw the tears welling in her son’s hollow eyes and hugged him, thinking he meant he was dumped by a girl at school, not knowing that the heart of the furiously weeping boy had stayed and died in the jungles of Jumanji.

Refusing to reconcile with the reality that his two deaths before being forced to sacrifice the NPC he loved and even married to return to the now meaningless “real” world was all for nothing, Ahihiko took inspiration from his ordeal and voraciously dedicates himself to the study of Game Creation, so he may one day re-create a world where death, loss and sacrifice actually HAS meaning, with the ONE life you have and will ever get, and graduated with Honors from Professor Shigemura’s University Course....

...on November 6 2022, The Immersive Online Game Sword Art Online was unleashed onto the unsuspecting world.

“I beat you, old friend. I finally beat you” he bitterly chuckled at the ancient PlayStation One console, from which the drums still mysterious beat as he shouts “Link Start.”

Linking to the above WMG, The Engine that ran the original Sword Art Online Servers IS Jumanji

How else can a 26 year old college professor create a living, breathing world real to all-senses save for pain, with nightmarish-monsters our for your blood, not to mention NPC and AI like Yui-Chan so nuanced and complete in personality they practically have souls? With technology that is a mere FOUR years away from now? Just as Zathura ran on the same magical “engine” of Jumanji to create a living breathing Space Opera, it stands to reason Kayaba was able to hack the now-electronic Jumaji after beating it...... or worse, enslave the game, take it apart and hard-wire it into the Sword Art Online server to help create the living-breathing Heroic-Fantasy World of Aincrad.

Visual Effects for the SAO Live-Action Adaptation

As with the One Piece live-action adaptation, it's bound to have some visual effects in it. Here are some guesses about which visual effect companies will be involved.

• Industrial Light & Magic: They've been around since its 1975 founding by George Lucas. ILM is famous for their work on the Star Wars film series, most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films (such as the Iron Man films, The Avengers (2012), Doctor Strange (2016), Ant-Man, Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok, Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther (2018), and Avengers: Infinity War), Back to the Future, and the Pirates of the Caribbean series (which also centers on pirates). Not only that, but they pushed the boundaries of the use of CGI animation and iMocap systems. Given their extensive experience in on-set practical and visual effects, it would be no surprise that ILM might be involved.
• WETA: WETA Digital and WETA Workshop were used for co-founder Peter Jackson's films such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Frighteners, the Continuity Reboot of Planet of the Apes beginning with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and The Hobbit trilogy. Not to mention that it was involved in the production of various films like Avatar, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Iron Man 3, Edge of Tomorrow, and Deadpool. WETA Digital also used the MASSIVE crowd-simulation software for their works and also developed proprietary software packages for their visual effects such as CityBot and has worked with ILM on occasions.
• Digital Domain: The company has provided visual effects for over 100 films such as Titanic, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Apollo 13, Avatar, and Deadpool. They've also worked with ILM and WETA on some occasions, and they might also get involved given how popular Digital Domain has been since its founding in 1993.
• Sony Pictures Imageworks: They've made visual effects and motion capture work for films such as the Spider-Man films (including its Continuity Reboot back in 2012 and Spider-Man: Homecoming), The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Hotel Transylvania, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), The Polar Express, Beowulf (2007), and Edge of Tomorrow.
• Animal Logic: They've been involved in various films like 300 and The LEGO Movie and have also contributed to the Marvel Cinematic Universe films along with WETA Digital, Digital Domain and ILM. Also, they've worked on The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded along with SPI and the first film in The Lord of the Rings alongside WETA Digital.
• Framestore: They've worked on Doctor Strange (2016) (along with ILM), as well as the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) films (along with WETA Digital for Vol. 2), Edge of Tomorrow (along with SPI, Digital Domain and WETA Digital) as well as Walking with Dinosaurs, Avatar, and, of course, the Harry Potter films (along with ILM for the first six films). They were also responsible for developing virtual camera and motion rig systems.
• Tsuburaya Productions: They already produce rather impressive effects for TV series on a weekly basis (just look at their most famous franchise), so unlike the other examples, they can handle multiple episodes. Plus, since the story "won't lose it's Japanese origins", it's possible that they could film in Japan, meaning that they wouldn't have to pay money to fly the personnel over.

Kirito and Asuna will be played by Asian actors in the live-action adaptation

Laeta Kalogrides herself stated that she will avoid whitewashing the cast. Given that the real-world setting is Japan, I think it would be appropriate for actors from Asian countries such as China, Japan or Korea to play their roles and possibly do the Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor route for the countries they are from. Let's hope it's not another Dragon Ball Evolution or The Last Airbender.

• Considering that Kirito and Asuna's hair styles are pretty common ones as opposed to Goku's Anime Hair, at the very least they wouldn't have to deal with angry fans upset about that detail being screwed up.

Argus was Bethesda Softworks that, in universe, facing bankruptcy, being bought by a Japanese firm in which Akihiko Kayaba was one of the staff

Zaskar, the creators of GGO, is a renamed Bethesda Softworks in-universe due to the large amount of similarities between GGO and Fallout

Cameos in the live-action series

The live-action adaptation may include cameo appearances from the English voice actors and its staff members (both from the dub and the staff of the live-action series), similar to what other franchises like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe have done.

Your character from Fatal Bullet will play a major role within the game universe version of Alicization

They will fully take Kirito's place from the original storyline, likely by way of getting poisoned instead of him. Alternatively, events could transpire in a way to have them join him from the start.

• Jossed. Alicization Lycoris has been announced by Bandai Namco themselves that it will be a straight up adaptation of that arc into video game format.
• Though there is a possibility of divergence or DLC that has the story diverge.

More of the cast will be involved with a game universe version of Alicization

There are just way too many popular characters to have a game universe version of Alicization include only Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Leafa, and your Fatal Bullet character. Despite the fact that doing so would lead to serious roster bloating, Bandai Namco WILL find a way to explain the presence of EVERYONE.

• Jossed, see above.

Kirito is a deeply closeted trans woman.

Think about it, in GGO their avatar is a woman thanks to a glitch involving the VR misreading Kirito's brainwaves, and trans people are more like the gender they identify with than the one they were assigned at birth, mentally speaking. They also exclusively go by a name other than their birth one. When's the last time you've heard Kirito referred to by his actual name?

• Jossed It's revealed soon after he logs in Kirito's appearance in GGO is actually the result of him getting a rare avatar model. The Light Novel goes into more detail and reveals that it's rewarded to players with long VR playtime, meaning Kirito got it because of his accumulated VR Experience in SAO and ALO.

Kayaba Akihiko created NERV-GEAR from the notes found in The Riddler’s Lair after The Box incident.

In 1995, an insane Waynetech intern called Edward Nygma created a broadcasting-network called The Box which *globally* beamed television entertainment *directly* into the brains of its viewers by manipulating their brainwaves and creating a “reality” that was “more real than real.” Thankfully, his employer Bruce Wayne, better known as Batman, apprehended the madman before he could take full advantage of its mind-manipulating powers, and threw him in Arkham asylum for his troubles with the help of one Dick Grayson, better known as a Robin...

...but not before Nygma could mail his notes of The Box’s creation to his Japanese pen-pal, Doctor Shigemura.

Even Shigemura himself saw how potentially dangerous such mass-mind-manipulation could be, and left Nygma’s notes in the back of his office to be eventually forgotten over the next 25 years...

... until an eccentric young PHD called Kayaba Akihiko, disillusioned with real life and a fan of The Riddler’s escapades, was charged with cleaning out the garbage. He saw the big green question mark on the dusty folder, thought back to The Box Incident that was thwarted by the accursed Batman, read the notes and coldly smiled....

If the Black Swordsman fought The Pink Devil, the latter would win

1. Kirito may be fast and agile but he doesn't have Super-Speed and Super-Reflexes like LLEN.
2. Kirito may be skilled with his Photon Sword but LLEN has defeated Photon Sword users before.
3. Kirito may have had a few lucky breaks but only LLEN is canonically a "lucky girl".

Sword Art Online would ultimately lead to Fallout.

After somehow the incident involving Glowgen and RATH leaked, Japan's status as US' protectorate was revoked and Japan being hit by an embargo following the "SAO Incident" which took the lives of thousands of players, and illegal AI research, which affects foreign players as well as Japanese players. In response, Japan, which was taken over by right wing party after US military withdrawals, fired back by starting the "New Plague" in the US and also attacking neighboring countries. World War III (which happens concurrent with the European-Middle East War and before the US-Chinese Resource Wars or even The Great War) happens proper, when in retaliation, Japan is nuked to oblivion by both US (which coincidentally testing the "Fat Man" nuclear catapult) and China, not before the US forcefully seizing all the AI and VR assets of the Japanese. Society in the US were reformed to remove foreign, especially Japanese, influence. However the smartest minds of Japan being transferred to the US in secret with deals of lifetime servitude to the US as fellow researchers or lifetime servitude to the Chinese as slaves. Their research led to the idea of Vault experiments (directly inspired by Kikuoka's Underworld experiment) and virtual reality devices, such as the Vault 112 "Tranquility Lane", the Operation Anchorage simulator, the bomber plane simulator the US Air Force, and later Boomers, use, and the Memory Lounger as used by Dr. Amari. Kikuoka were then reassigned to the CIT, given the same life-extending systems as Mr. House, and later becoming the first Father of the Institute, inspiring the creation of the synth, and then, in his dying days, hire Kellogg to find a replacement Father.

• There is also the fact that most robots and AI in the Fallout-verse were personable and logical, as if they're "bottom-up" (self-learning) instead of "top-down" (pre-programmed).
• And also how the Robobrain is one of the crude attempt of General Atomics, independent to the CIT, to reproduce the creation of fluctlights through a different method, instead of "copying the soul", they simply directly use intact brains.

Klein and his Guild, Fuurinkazan, will join the Frontlines before or when they reach Floor 10

• Based on Kirito's mention of "Samurai Snake" on Floor 10 and Ordinal Scale revealing that the boss for Floor 10 is "Kagachi the Samurai Lord", Klein and his Guild may have joined the Frontlines when they reached Floor 10, and it's largely Samurai aesthetic is what inspired their own.
  • Further suggested by the fight against Kagachi in Ordinal Scale, with Fuurinkazan showing themselves to dealing with him quite efficiently without third-party support, suggesting a familiarity with him and his attack patterns.
  • Klein is one of the few players with a Katana skill, which is noted to be very rare. Maybe he got it in a special hidden quest on Floor 10?

Mito isn't a player, but Asuna's Imaginary Friend.

• Between her lack of mention by Asuna or Kirito in canon and a few other factors, it's possible that Mito isn't actually a player, but someone in Asuna's head, perhaps a representation of Asuna's Death Seeker tendencies early in SAO.
  • In one frame, Mito is shown sitting on a bed with her legs curled up to her body with a depressed look on her face. Something Asuna admits to doing early in SAO before actually going out to fight was holding herself up in an inn room in despair, similar to what Mito is shown doing.
  • Her weapon is a Sinister Scythe, a common weapon in media for the Grim Reaper and other gods of death. Another thing of note is that something as exotic as a scythe would be an odd weapon to be available as early as Floor 1, where more basic weapons like swords or spears would be more common, making it's presence alone an oddity.
  • One frame in the trailer shows a large, shadowy figure in a mask pouncing on Asuna from behind. Keen eyed viewers that this figure is wearing similar clothes to Mito, as well as having the same hair color. Plus, the figure is clearly too big to be a player and monsters can't even enter safezones, making it being a figment of Asuna's imagination all the more likely.
  • While the September 15th trailer shows that Asuna knew Mito IRL, there are still some oddities with her; Namely, her retaining her purple hair, albeit in a darker shade. While seemingly minor, seeing as SAO characters have some unique IRL hair colours among the more normal Japanese ones, such as Asuna's strawberry blonde and Klein's ginger red, it stands out a lot more than either of their hair colours. And while one could make the argument that it's dyed, the implications that Asuna went to a all-girls school which, considering her Education Mama's high standards suggesting that she'd be sent to a rather strict one, makes it unlikely they'd let dying hair slide without repercussions considering Japan's attitudes towards dying and bleaching hair.

Progressive’s handling of Asuna’s infamous "use the NPCs as bait" suggestion.

• Either the entire exchange won’t happen at all, or someone else will make the suggestion and Kirito or Asuna will duel them instead of each other. Either way, the idea that Asuna would ever suggest such a thing after bonding with Kizmel the way she has just does not seem believable to this troper. Going from viewing an NPC almost like a sister to treating them all like non-sentient cannon fodder is a level in jerkass I just cannot see Asuna taking.
• Or it would be portrayed as Asuna not being in her right state of mind due to her increasing desperation to escape.

Yuuki will be resurrected through VR

YUNA already established that it's possible and considering Yuuki's tenancy to show up as Asuna's Guardian Angel along with the tech needed to manipulate souls actually existing it's not inconceivable that the next time she shows up in VR someone isolates her fluclight and inserts it into her avatar, which would effectively bring her back to life.

The "Nerv-Gear" is reverse-engineered from The Animus tech of Assassin's Creed

By 2018, the "Animus" as refined by Layla Hassan, with but a drop of blood or strand of hair, is not only able to re-create decades-long and fully-accurate simulations of entire lands and eras down to the last blade of grass, but populate it with a cast of artificial intelligence that are able to intuitively and accordingly react to the user's choices, even if it contradict actual historical events (much like how Yui is able to become self-aware through persistent interaction with others). One can surmise that stealing a unit and reverse engineering it to simulate a world thematically structured around a rough set of European Fantasy cultural-and-linguistic-templates (much like how Aletheia the Isu scientist created interactive "memories" of Elisium, Hades and Atlantis that Alexios the Eagle Bearer can understand by using a Greek Cultural "template") is what allowed a disgruntled young Templar called Akihiko Kayaba to so quickly develop the massive 100-Level Heroic Fantasy world of Sword Art Online by 2022, so soon in his mid-20's after graduating from university. In fact, it can be surmised that the simulations of Asgard and Jotunheim extracted from the genetic memories of Eivor Varinson in 2020 is the template that allowed RECT to so quickly develop the mythical and distinctly Norse epic world of Alfheim online by 2023.

Joe of the ALS is actually Johnny Black

• It's heavily hinted and eventually all but revealed that Joe, a member of the Aincrad Liberation Squad in Progressive who's shown to basically be anime Kibaou if he was more of a prick, is a member of The Conspiracy led by PoH trying to sabotage the frontlines. However, there are some hints that that he could also be Johnny Black, a well-known member of Laughing Coffin.
  • It's established that Johnny is one of Laughing Coffin's highest ranked members, being paired with the similarly ranked XaXa and being trusted enough to assist PoH to try and kill Schmitt. Considering how he... doesn't seem like much of a thinker or leader, this could be instead be attributed to seniority, having been part of the group since it's infancy as The Conspiracy.
  • While "John" would likely be more appropriate, Joe could be seen as a shortened form of Johnny, especially if you consider the average player's unfamiliarity with foreign sounding names, based on their inability to realize the meaning of Nezuo's name, since most of them, or at least those in the ALS who would likely know his full username, are native Japanese speakers.
  • The both of them use the same weapon, that being a One-Handed Dagger. Plus, his and Morte's attack on Kirito and Asuna in Volume 5 has them use special poison provided by the Fallen Elves, which is where Johnny's penchant for poisoned weapons could have originated.
  • Johnny himself, compared to the likes of the PoH and even XaXa, is less of a Manipulative Bastard and more comparable to Dumb Muscle, being an Ax-Crazy lunatic who simply enjoys poisoning and killing other players. Similarly, while not quite the same personality-wise (yet), Joe is also shown to be a rather poor manipulator, all of his attempts at it^note  inciting fellow frontliners to PK the Legend Braves and trying to convince Kibaou to attack Kirito and Asuna for the guild flag almost immediately going wrong.
  • Starting from Puyocha's run as the Progressive manga's illustrator, Joe's appearance has started to bear more and more resemblances to Johnny's. Along with the hooded poncho worn by most Laughing Coffin members, he's also started wearing armoured gauntlets with dark leather gloves, he has a slight stubble similar to the one Johnny had when he attacked Kirito IRL in Alicization, and even the dagger he uses bears a resemblance, having a jagged, crude-looking blade.
  • The Aria of Starless Night Anime film also has Johnny himself make an Early-Bird Cameo as someone playing Devil's Advocate to Kibaou accusations against Kirito, sporting a Psychotic Smirk when they all start to gang up on him. This all but states that Johnny was with the Frontlines from the beginning, further hinting that he could be Joe.

Deusolbert was a hunter before his Synthesis

Deusolbert lacks a lot of haughtiness that comes with being nobility, unlike Eldrie and Nergius, and lacks anything resembling their Hedonistic tendencies, coming off as much more disciplined and having no apparent hobbies that would imply a noble background. Combined with his skill with a bow and more practical approaches to fighting Kirito and Eugeo compared to the other knights, this suggests that he was a commoner before becoming a Knight, specifically one with the Calling of "Hunter", which is where his bow skills could have originated.

• The anime further suggests this with it's version of his last memory of his wife. With what can be gleamed about his home at the time, he seemed to be at least wealthier than the average commoner but otherwise lived modestly, and he and his wife appear to don rather modest clothing. Additionally, their wedding rings, while stated to be silver, looked rather undecorated, whereas you'd expect Noble married couples to wear more flashy rings.
• This additionally gives a couple of possibilities as to what led to his arrest and synthesis; he could have accidentally entered a forbidden area while hunting, or perhaps shot a fellow human, either by missing a shot or mistaking them for an animal.

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