Quote:
Originally Posted by lightbringer
The novel was written before the side stories and is not consistent. As you noticed, some of the side stories which come later partially retcon events in the first novel, especially with respect to Asuna/Kirito interactions. It's a bit jarring. 
In the first novel, they did not meet at the level one boss fight. Instead, they meet for the first time about six months before the events of the novel - when Asuna chastises Kirito for sleeping but ends up taking a nap herself. From that moment, Asuna starts getting closer to Kirito, but most of their interaction is still simply from the boss battle strategy meetings. They do not go to any restaurants.
Murder in the Area elaborates on their "first" meeting but also changes the last part - they end up at a restaurant a number of times.
Aria in the Starless Night moves their first meeting from "six months ago seeing Kirito sleeping under a tree" to "two years ago having Kirito save Asuna in the middle of a dungeon and then teaming up with her for the first boss fight". |
Spoiler for My reasoning as to why K & A did not meet for the first time 6 months prior to the end of SAO Volume 1:
If you ask me, it's possible that was just how it sounds based on the word choice of the translator. I'm not saying it was a mistake on his/her part in translating, but the words themselves were vague. Even in the translation, it was not stated that they met for the first time six months prior, but that she liked him starting at that time. I believe because of the words "He looked as if he was at a pretty high level" (Chapter 19), people assume she had never met him before then, but she laughs afterwards, which make it seem (to me) like she is teasing him.
I would also like to point out that she was a sub-leader, or at least an important part of KoB at that time, and Kirito speaks of experience on the 25th and 50th level bosses, showing he was part of the boss fighting groups, so there would have been some form of interaction between the two.
Considering that in Volume 8, it clearly states that Kirito and Asuna knew each other before that 6 month mark (they fought over tactics in boss fights), I would have to say there is no particular thing to reconcile. And I suppose we can assume Aria is canon if it is in the anime as well, since it's vaguely following Kawahara's stories.
Ah, and just so you know, this isn't particularly a rant against you, lightbringer. I've seen your point brought up a few times here and there and I don't think anyone has said anything contrary to it. Ultimately, we are all using a second-hand account (going off someone else's translations) to accept these "facts."