Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online (SAO)

Yes, you can judge this book by it's cover. 

I recently stumbled upon an anime adaptation of a light novel series called "Sword Art Online". I expected nothing special, but I soon was blown away by the sheer thought provoking plot. In a nutshell, in the year 2022 a brand new MMO was released that allowed 10,000 players to plug in to a virtual world through the use of a helmet like device.

Pictured: "helmet like device"

The "helmet" receives or sends signals to the player's brain; additionally, the helmet blocks the player's  ability to communicate with their own body thus inducing a coma like state when the player is logged in. 

The helmet sounds ominous as hell to begin with, but whatever!

The story takes off when the players fail to find a "log off" option and find themselves mentally trapped in the game. An ominous character emerges out the darkness and announces to the 10,000 players that the only way to return is to clear all 100 levels of the game. Death in the game means death in real life due to the helmet hardware being able to send electromagnetic waves to the player's brain. Any tampering with the hardware would also result in instant death. 

"HOLY FECES!" I can't help but feel sorry for the players who stood in line for hours to get a devilish MMO game and hardware to be told they needed to clear the game in order to survive.

"Dammit ASUNA I told you not to eat those glowing mushrooms!"

Give it a chance and you will not be disappointed. Link to novel. 


Here is a shout out to the few people in the world who bothered to read my blog! Honestly, I wrote for the hell of it but now I have readers from Russia, Netherlands, Brazil, Germany, and of course the United States. I hope to find another worthy anime soon.