It grabs you by the collar in episode one and never quite apologizes for it. Kayaba's blood-red robe unfolding over the Town of Beginnings, ten thousand players clutching mirrors as their real faces snap back onto their avatars, Kirito taking the "beater" label on purpose so everyone else can hate one person instead of each other. Then Sachi's Christmas message plays and the Moonlit Black Cats stop being a side quest. Yuki Kajiura's "Swordland" does absurd amounts of heavy lifting, and Starburst Stream still gets the hair on your arms up no matter how many times you have heard people dunk on it. Yes, the jump from floor one to floor seventy four is criminal, and yes, Fairy Dance trades Aincrad's death stakes for a birdcage and Sugou. You stayed anyway, because Asuna sleeping on a bench with her HP bar full is the exact reason you clicked play.

Thousands of players log into Sword Art Online, a fully immersive virtual reality game set in Aincrad, a medieval world they move through with their own bodies by way of the NerveGear. Soon they learn the log-out option is gone. The game's creator has trapped them: the only escape is to clear all 100 floors of the tower and beat the final boss. Worse, dying in the game means dying in real life. Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya played the beta, but that head start is not enough to survive alone. He joins forces with Asuna Yuuki and other capable players against tough bosses and menacing dark cults. What results is an action adventure with fantasy and romance woven through it.