[Clarste]

Originally Posted by natsu_san

Spoiler for Subject-person during the story:

I don't know if anyone besides me noticed this, but why doe the author let Kirito speak as the "I" subject (1st subject, mostly in the beginning of the 1st volume), while later on the author refers to him as "the black swordsman" or "Kirito" or other subjects (3rd subject). Not sure how do you call this in English as I'm not a native speaker. I hope you understand what I mean though.

The novel is consistently written in first person, even throughout the later stories. However, it spends at least half the time from the perspective of other characters (usually the "heroine" of the story). So it switches back and forth from Kirito's perspective to other people's.