main characters
KiritoThe main protagonist of Sword Art Online, Kazuto, who uses the portmanteau "Kirito" as his character name, is a "solo" player who has been branded a "beater" (a combination of beta tester and cheater) by the players in Sword Art Online. When Kayaba announces that the players of SAO can no longer log-out without clearing the game, he quickly overcomes the shock. He power-levels to improve his odds of survival in the game and emerges as a frontline floor-clearer known as the Black Swordsman, during this time Kirito experiences great trauma following the destruction of a small guild he had joined for some time, causing him to avoid guilds until he was forced to join the Knights of the Blood Oath. In SAO, he is the sole «Dual Blades» skill user. During his time in SAO, he falls in love with a female player, Asuna, and even marries her in-game.
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AsunaThe main heroine of Sword Art Online and main protagonist of the seventh volume, Asuna is a friend and later to be wife of Kirito and a sub-leader of the "Knights of the Blood Oath", a medium-sized guild acknowledged as the strongest guild in Aincrad. Being one of the few girls that play SAO and extremely attractive, she receives many invitations and proposals. Asuna is a strong-willed, accomplished player known in-game as the "Lightning Flash" for her extraordinary fast sword skill.
Later, she falls in love with Kirito and they marry in-game. Towards the end of the SAO arc, she saves Kirito from a killing blow by Heathcliff at the cost of her life. However, her death was only in-game and she is shortly reunited with Kirito shortly after his death defeating Heathcliff. |
YuiOriginally a side-story character in SAO, Yui later becomes an accompanying/support character in ALO. At first thought to be a lost child in SAO, she is an artificial intelligence. Her full designation is «Mental Health - Counselling Program», MHCP version. Yui is shown to have a human form and a Navigation Pixie form where she is always barefoot in both forms. She was designed to monitor the emotions of players and appear at their sides to hear and help them out. However, since the moment everyone was imprisoned in Sword Art Online, she was forbidden to come in contact with the players and complete her prime directive. Unable to do anything but suffer as she monitored the emotions of the trapped players, she came upon Kirito and Asuna whose emotions stood out as a beacon of joy and peace in a sea of fear and despair. She sought them out, appearing to them as an amnesia child whom they adopted. In the end she was nearly deleted by Cardinal, the management system of SAO. But Kirito saved her by converting and storing her data into his own NerveGear. Yui later shows up in ALO as a Private Navigation Pixie and helps Kirito along with Leafa to find Asuna. She refers to Kirito as "Papa" and Asuna as "Mama" and gets very annoyed if any girl other than Sinon, Leafa or Asuna gets close to Kirito. Kirito uses his skills and resources in the real world to construct a device for Yui to view the real world even while she is in virtual reality and gives her the ability to communicate with them.
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side characters
Klein
A friendly player that meets Kirito at the start of the game, who quickly befriends and learns the basics from Kirito. They go their separate ways shortly after when Kirito leaves for another town to power level, while Klein remains behind to help out his less experienced friends, although he has concern feelings for Kirito due to his solitude and recklessness. Klein uses a katana to fight and later becomes a leader of his own guild, Fuurinkazan. He regularly meets with Kirito and his friends and occasionally joins them in quests in ALO, especially after the release of the World Seed.[5]
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EgilA bald axe wielder who owns a general shop in SAO. Agil is 244cm tall with a muscular build. Despite his intimidating appearance, he is kind-hearted and spent most of his earnings to help players in the middle floors. Kirito is a regular in his shop and they are friends. Agil runs a bar named "Dicey Café" in the real world, which was run by his wife during his two-year coma. The café later becomes Kazuto and company's meeting place in the real world.
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Healthcliff
Akihiko Kayaba is the director and founder of the NerveGear and Sword Art Online, as well as the main antagonist of the SAO arc. He traps all the players within SAO by using the NerveGear to cease sending signals to the users' body. Any in-game death or attempt at removal of the NerveGear would result in the real-life death of the user. Later, it is discovered that he has been posing as Heathcliff, the leader of the major Knights of the Blood Oath. Although he has the admin authority to make his avatar immortal, he is shown to be a powerful player even without his in-game immortality due to his intimate understanding of the SAO game mechanics which he himself had designed. His only goal in life was to make the Aincrad a reality. He is destroyed by Kirito at the end of Volume 4, leaves behind a program that grants Kirito the World Seed. His death is his own doing since he has also rigged his own Soul Translator device to kill him when he is destroyed and transferring his soul into a digital form onto the Internet.