-This is a SpoilerFree review-
First of all I want to tell you that I'm not an english native so sorry for my poor english and for the eventual errors.
Sword Art Online, the novel behind one of the most discussed anime ever. Someone says "it's the best, omg nothing can be compared to that", someone else says "it's just the worst story ever with the worst character ever".
So that point of view gave me a lot of curiosity, I just wanted to start reading the novels, and after reading all the 14 that are out up until now I feel ready to explain my vision over
...
this series.
We have our main character: Kirigaya Kazuto (much more well known as Kirito) who will "travel" trought many different virtual reality worlds, with just a sword as his neverchanging companion, and every time he will deal with different kind of lifethreatening dangers.
Let's begin.
I will devide the various arcs, and than tell an overall small personal point od view.
Aincrad Arc - Volume 1+ Spin off (2 and 8)
I think I never read something with so much potential and nothing that wasted that much potential. The story is good, the setting is just insane and anyone who loves MMO would love that kind of setting. The ending is actually well done as well, the problem is what's in between. I felt like I was reading a black hole. We have no clue on what's happening during those 2 years, and I was dissatisfied. If the main problem is with the plot development the second major problem is with the characters. Expecially with the spin offs. We have a whole lot of characters over those 3 novels but just a couple are actually useful for any development, and even those aren't well explained, well characterised and we don't know nothing about their background. For me, who likes to analyze the character behind, was annoying. Anyway it's still a quite interesting story and it's enjoyable, overall rating for this arc: 6.5
Fairy Dance - Volumes 3 and 4
If the first arc showed how the autor can fuck up with the potential, here he just showed how he can create a story with basically no potential at all. I mean, I think this arc is completly useless. I didn't like it and that's just my tought. On the good side he created an actual story involving some more characters (...) out of nothing. It feel forced.
Overall rating imho:5.5
Phantom Bullet - Volumes 5 and 6
I like to think the author realized that the previous characters were just too much and not well explained and that the story had too many loops in between. So he created the GGO arc. We have just one character, and for the first time she has a background, a personality and a development. Sinon isn't static, she is interesting and well done. You can like her or dislike her, but you can't deny she is the first complete character ever in this series (it took only 5 books though), and for the story he resolved the loops by lowering the lenght of the period descripted. I personally liked the change of setting with the futuristic style of weapons (lightsaber-snipers-lasers weapon etc), but that's up to a personal taste. I preferred much more the light novel than the anime for this arc. First because we don't have all the shots on Sinon ass, second because it explains the move of the characters (I felt that the people who didn't read the novel couldn't get at all the meaning behind the move Kirito did in the episode 13... anyway) Overall score: 7.5
Mother's Rosario - Volume 7
A short spinoff with Asuna as our main character instead of the usual Kirito. It's not needed for the main story, as it won't leave anything actually important for the next arc, but it's a really enjoying volume. Finally Asuna get background, finally we can know her better, and finally we gat back to see the "new" Aincrad, which I liked (the idea of a floating castle with 100 floors). We got a new co-protagonist, Zekken Yuki, or "Absolute Sword", and she is quite amazing on both the personality and skill in game.
As I said, it's not needed to read this volume, but I personally loved it. Overall score: 7.5
Alicization arc - Volume 9 to 14 (up to now, it will go on)
That's the real thing. Finally we got an actually long story, which is set in a long period of time, and which doesn't present any gap. The character are well developed and finally our protagonist show some colours. It takes place in the new world "UnderWorld", an hyper-realistic world where magic (called sacred arts) is a normal thing and everything has his own HP (named Life).
Kirito after his long journey in the previous world was quite too overpowered, here he start from the beginning, not being able to lift an high level sword.
The story is quite simple, but it doesn't present any bad gap, everything is explained in a really detailed way, from the rules of the world, from his hierarchy... I found it interesting, sometimes the fight present too much description but well, that's what the whole series is about, swordfights.
The only thing that I hated is the beginning of the second volume (volume 10) where we have over 100 pages of description of the new fulldive technology, but you can feel free to skip them, there is nothing so important there.
Overall rating:8.5
It was a quite long journey to go throught this series, and I feel like you should give it a shot despite all the badmouthing that's around the animated series. If you want feel free to read the first arc and than skip to the arc that more interested you, because the only thing that's quite similar throught all the arcs are the references to the Aincrad arc, while the others are just quite disconnected.
I enjoyed the series and I give it a 7.5, just drop any previous heard stuff about it and think with your own mind!
Thank you for reading my review.
 Alternative TitlesSynonyms: S.A.O, SAO Japanese: ソードアート・オンライン More titlesInformationType: Light Novel
Volumes: Unknown
Chapters: Unknown
Status: Publishing
Published: Apr 10, 2009 to ?
Theme:
Video Game
Serialization:
None Statistics Ranked: #7842 2 based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded. Popularity: #256
Members: 62,385
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Filtered Results: 10 / 11
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Oct 7, 2014
-This is a SpoilerFree review-
First of all I want to tell you that I'm not an english native so sorry for my poor english and for the eventual errors. Sword Art Online, the novel behind one of the most discussed anime ever. Someone says "it's the best, omg nothing can be compared to that", someone else says "it's just the worst story ever with the worst character ever". So that point of view gave me a lot of curiosity, I just wanted to start reading the novels, and after reading all the 14 that are out up until now I feel ready to explain my vision over ... 
Aug 10, 2012
Sword Art Online is about a virtual reality MMORPG. It is set on 2022, where humanity has finally for the first time able to completely go inside the game world using virtual reality technology.
At first I didn't really put high expectation to it, since it's genre is quite mainstream, like .hack G.U. or Yureka, but with a tint taste of darkness; Death is real here. But the more I read it, the more I find myself enjoying the proggress of the story. The writer, Kawahara Reki gives a really realistic system and surrounding of said VR game, and it makes us able to completely drowned ... 
Aug 14, 2013
I've read the baka-tsuki version of every main story up to Alicization, which I won't start until the translation is finished. This review is for every non-side up till then, not just the first volume.
The series is very good. Poorly written, but very enjoyable. You can tell the author was younger when he wrote it and each arc is vastly different from the others as he progresses as an author. Story 7/10 Every arc is different here. Vastly. First arc Sword Art Online the story basically serves as a medium with which to explain the world to you. The romance factors are a bit exaggerated since the ... 
Jun 23, 2012
Volume one probably the best so far that I've read in the series known as Sword Art Online, the characters are deep, and you end up developing an equal sentimental attachment of virtual world it all takes place. The romance may come about a little fast pace but you quickly forget about it as you find yourself quickly rapped up in how intimate and deep it is. By the end you definitely will get emotional, I won't say any spoilers but its a proper end to the whole story.
But wait theres more, I skipped over the side stories and went right to the essential ... 
Apr 8, 2012
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be inside a game? people everywhere have always wanted to be inside a game or at least considered what it would be like to live in one. In this day and age there are games like MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing games) where people can customise their very own characters and travel the online fairytale worlds where they can participate in adventures, quests, they can conquer dungeons, fight monsters, meet new people, just about anything but you can't actually experience this firsthand because it is limited to the fact that you cant actually live
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Jan 31, 2014
Alright so first, this is my first review and never less I'm doing this on a phone, so hand with me here. Do let's get started,
First, the story, the story has a great plot line while being the smartest novel, I've read. It goes into full Detail behind how the virtual reality in the story works.the theory on sword art's VR is plausible and bring a the reader I on a whole new level.add the story goes on the plot line gets even more smart and interesting in the alicization arcs,( I think I spelled that right) which introduces more technology and goes ... 
Nov 15, 2015
Let me just say I am not reviewing the entirety of the light novel series. Although I have read almost all of them, I am writing primarily on the fourth arc of the LN; Aliciziation.
Most people have seen at least the first season of the anime, maybe even the second season. However; after the second season/volume 8, begins the best part of the entire series. I am unwilling to provide a quick overview because you must experience the entire journey for yourself. The plot is so well executed, and the two main characters on the cover of volume 9 or the focal point of this journey. ... 
May 13, 2023
THIS IS A SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
This is probably going to be the longest review so far. The Sword Art Online franchise has left a questionable mark on the anime community. Some love it, some hate it and there doesn´t seem to be anything in between. To fully dive into the series, i started collecting and reading all of the localized original light novel over the course of two years. This is not the end of the franchise, but for a while it will be the last bit that i will read. This review will cover everything from the Aincrad Arc up to Alicization. I will go ... 
Feb 13, 2017
Note: I will only be talking about Project Alicization arc (volume 9 to 18), which isn't in the anime. I found the previous 8 volumes not much different from the anime.
Story (10): The setting is unique, different from the other settings in the first 8 volumes. It's more similar to an alternate universe, than a virtual world. The virtual world isn't for entertainment uses, which makes the functions within the virtual world which is called Underworld, different from the other three virtual worlds. The Project Alicization arc is set in 2026, after the Mother's Rosario arc. It introduces new technology, and it's not just going from ... 
Sep 30, 2017
As a native speaker of mandarin, i am lucky enough to enjoy the novels without needing to wait the long translation time or the english translation of the book. Although the first story about Aincrad have seem to be unorganized and messy in structure due to its original purpose is for a novel contest, the story construction skills of Reki Kawahara is something that is definitely worth praising. Both the ALO arc and GGO arc provided a thorough and organized storyline, that are easy to read, understand, and enjoy. Kawahara together with his incredible skills of building tensions and setting the mood while reading, shown
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