The year is 2022 and virtual gaming has been taken to the next level. Nerve Gear plugs into the central nervous system and so can directly stimulate the player’s senses. In reverse the players use their minds to control their characters. The game of the hour is Sword Art Online and on its release date many excited players log in for the first time. After a great first session players then find that they cannot log out. The creator of the game then reveals that this is intentional and that if they wish to escape from the game then they have to get to the 100th floor of the tower and take on and beat the final boss.
There is an added catch to this game however, and that is that if the in-game avatar dies, then so does the real life body. The story follows one intrepid player called Kirito who is intent on beating the game. While Kirito plays he meets and ends up befriending a female player who is called Asuna who ends up becoming his lover. They take on a different plan when they identify the creator’s avatar within the game. Together they defeat him and free both themselves and the rest of the players who are trapped in the game.
When he returns to real life Kirito finds out that Asuna, along with some of the other players who had been trapped in Sword Art Online, had been trapped in another game called Alfheim Online. It turns out it was a trap to make Asuna marry Nobuyuki Sugo so that he can take over her family’s company. Kirito then forms a group of old friends along with some new allies, takes on the fight against Nobuyuki and frees Asuna.
Kirito’s life does not get any easier from here on in as he investigates some mysterious deaths that are occurring to Gun Gale Online players. He uncovers the source, which is a guild that he had encountered in Sword Art Online. After successfully solving the murder mystery, Kirito finds that he cannot stay away from his virtual gaming world and is tempted into playing UnderWorld, a game that offers the most advanced interface yet. Time in the game flows far faster than in the real world but Kirito falls into a trap so that he wakes up in the game, once again trapped and not able to log out. So he ends up back where he started, trapped inside a game trying to find a way out.
The television series only recently came out and so there have only been 25 episodes that have been made and aired so far, however there are more in production. If you want to watch the story so far, then you can find all of the episodes on AoH. Your mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets are ideal for watching these episodes if they have a streaming capability and have access to Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G networks. If there are no networks available then you can download episodes onto your iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S3 and watch them at your leisure.