Sword Art Online is considered one of the best anime series of all time, and its impact on the isekai genre cannot be overstated. Kirito remains a pillar within the fandom, and of course, the same can be said for Asuna. After all their time spent together, Sword Art Online is exploring the couple with new light novels, manga volumes, and films. And in the wake of the new year, well – Sword Art Online fans are eyeing the two and their series extra hard.
And why is that, you might be asking? Well, it all has to do with 2022. If you didn’t know, the original series was set in the year 2022, so fans are rightfully freaking out.
Link start… pic.twitter.com/iGcgT7Vea4
— Anime Corner (@animecorner_ac) January 2, 2022
The whole conversation came about naturally as the new year rung in yesterday. As midnight struck on 2021, a new year was welcomed with many hoping for a better 2022. But if you happen to be a fan of Sword Art Online, you know this year has been bungled before. In the anime, 2022 marked the start of Kirito’s hero quest, and it changed his life for good.
If you look back in Sword Art Online, 2022 ushered the release of the NerveGear that May after the sophisticated VR tech was released. By August, the Sword Art Online game went into its Closed beta before the game launched in full that November. And not long after the game launched, Kirito and 10,000 players were trapped inside Sword Art Online following a cyber attack. More than 200 died that day alone and more would follow as players who died in the game would follow in real life.
Clearly, 2022 was a wild year in the Sword Art Online universe, but it didn’t go south until November came around. At the start, things seemed great as new VR tech was made public, and the future of gaming expanded its horizons. In our real world, much the same can be said thanks to innovations from Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. But when it comes to VR, well – we are nowhere near ready to launch a console as complicated as the NerveGear. Honestly, that is probably for the best given how the tech was used in Sword Art Online. So if you are set on exploring VR this year, may we recommend the Oculus or HTC Vive.
What do you make of the new year’s connection to Sword Art Online? How far away do you think we are from gaming like Kirito and Asuna? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB.