Sword Art Online - Q & A

[Gearhead]

The SAO servers people were logged into were in the fifth sub-basement of Argus' corporate headquarters.

[ronelm2000]

Originally Posted by Gearhead

The SAO servers people were logged into were in the fifth sub-basement of Argus' corporate headquarters.

And where is Argus' corporate HQ located...anyway?

[Gearhead]

Somewhere in Japan.

[ronelm2000]

Originally Posted by Gearhead

Somewhere in Japan.

Not even a city...? (I wanted something a little bit more specific, honestly,)

[Gearhead]

It's never actually said.

[Malkuth]

@GenjiChan+Aphrah: Thanks for the answers, but I must say that the novel sounds as disappointing as the anime (considering the budget).

What sounds very strange (to me) is that they partially adapted only two volumes in 14 episodes. Is the writing style similar to Horizon novels? i.e. wasted in setting details irrelevant to the plot (whether main or side)?

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by Malkuth

@GenjiChan+Aphrah: Thanks for the answers, but I must say that the novel sounds as disappointing as the anime (considering the budget).

What sounds very strange (to me) is that they partially adapted only two volumes in 14 episodes. Is the writing style similar to Horizon novels? i.e. wasted in setting details irrelevant to the plot (whether main or side)?

The exact opposite -- according to my Kindle, the first two books are only two hundred pages each in English, compared to the giant bricks of the Horizon novels. Kawahara just squeezed a lot into that space.

[Gearhead]

His writing style is astonishingly dense, in terms of data delivered in a given set of words, especially for someone who started writing at 15.

[ronelm2000]

Originally Posted by Gearhead

His writing style is astonishingly dense, in terms of data delivered in a given set of words, especially for someone who started writing at 15.

This. so much this. And as a weak example, compare it to over 90% of the writers in FF.net.

Anyway, any info about Kirito's house? Like... Kirito's room content?

[Gearhead]

Spoiler for Expansion of what was shown briefly in the first episode of the anime:

Kirito's house is actually quite interesting. It's a large home with hardwood floors and an attached dojo.

The implication may be that his family is, or at some point in the past was, kinda loaded.

We see his room briefly in the first episode and it's kinda spartan. Mostly taken up by his computer, his bed, and a bookshelf over his desk filled with books on rather heavy duty computer science, AI theory, etc books.

[Malkuth]

Originally Posted by Gearhead

His writing style is astonishingly dense, in terms of data delivered in a given set of words,

Hmmm... interesting, I guess I'll check the novels after all, I haven't read anything "epic" since 12 kingdoms.

Originally Posted by Gearhead

especially for someone who started writing at 15.

Huh?! doesn't this happen about 6-7 years old... he doesn't have to use kanji anyway

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Malkuth

Huh?! doesn't this happen about 6-7 years old... he doesn't have to use kanji anyway

Meaning that he presumably started writing these novels while he was in his teens, not that that's when he learned how to write...

[Netto Azure]

Originally Posted by Gearhead

Spoiler for Not yet revealed in the anime:

Kirito's house is actually quite interesting. It's a large home with hardwood floors and an attached dojo.

The implication may be that his family is, or at some point in the past was, kinda loaded.

We see his room briefly in the first episode and it's kinda spartan. Mostly taken up by his computer, his bed, and a bookshelf over his desk filled with books on rather heavy duty computer science, AI theory, etc books.

Well technically it's already been shown in the Anime...

Spoiler for Stuff:

When Suguha goes to school you could see that it's a traditional large Japanese house.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Netto Azure

It's already been revealed. Watch Episode 1 again.

Spoiler for Stuff:

When Suguha goes to school you could see that it's a traditional large Japanese house.

Okay, yes, it was shown, but I think that's a bit much information to expect anime viewers to figure out based on a few quick shots (otherwise, why ask the question?). Will correct the spoiler tag label, though.

(But to be clear: that label wasn't Gearhead's fault; I added it.)

[Netto Azure]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Okay, yes, it was shown, but I think that's a bit much information to expect anime viewers to figure out based on a few quick shots (otherwise, why ask the question?). Will correct the spoiler tag label, though.

(But to be clear: that label wasn't Gearhead's fault; I added it.)

Ah ok, sorry about that.

A-1 really did pack a lot of information in these 14 episodes. O_O

[Gearhead]

Originally Posted by Malkuth

Huh?! doesn't this happen about 6-7 years old... he doesn't have to use kanji anyway

He started writing THIS at the age of 15. Looking back at some of the stuff I wrote when I was that age (and my goodness that was a long time ago) I'm appalled.

My suspicion is that he's been writing since a very young age, he already had a pretty good grasp of how to tell a story and how to lay one out. The chopped up and abbreviated nature of Volume 1 stems from the nature of what he originally wanted to submit it to. (That contest had a very strict page count limit.)

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Gearhead

He started writing THIS at the age of 15.

Incidentally, is this actually confirmed anywhere? I haven't seen anything anywhere that confirms the author's age, though a lot of people assume he must have been in his teens at the time.

[Gearhead]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Incidentally, is this actually confirmed anywhere? I haven't seen anything anywhere that confirms the author's age, though a lot of people assume he must have been in his teens at the time.

He started writing SAO at the age of 15 for submission to a contest. But the contest had a maximum page count requirement, the deadline passed while he was trying to edit what would be Volume 1 down under the needed count and decided to just release it on the web instead.

Going by interviews, he got into the business itself later on through another route and got Accel World published first. Then his editor approached him about cleaning up and releasing SAO as a series of Light Novels too.

Interesting Note: abec, the artist for the LNs, was also in her teens when she started drawing for the series.

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by Vanish

Spoiler for questions:

4) I read that Asuna will be captured in the upcoming game which means she won't be able to log out until a certain goal is reached. Does that mean that while there is no longer the life-death situation, her brain would still be micro'd if the NG was forcefully taken off?
I get the feeling that the NG is a very... dangerous killing tool if you can simply hack away someone's ability to log off and basically leave that person to rot away and die in reality. Seems like the NG needs better security or something.

Aphrah has already ably addressed points 1-3, so I'll just elaborate further on this:

Spoiler for Spoilers for Fairy Dance NervGear fate:

After the SAO debacle, a new model of VR gaming headset, the AmuSphere, is released, and this time people check it to make sure it can't be used to fry people's brains like the NervGear. Most people who had NervGears upgrade to the AmuSphere, especially after product recalls; as an example, by Volume 7, Asuna's using an AmuSphere.

[Krono]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Incidentally, is this actually confirmed anywhere? I haven't seen anything anywhere that confirms the author's age, though a lot of people assume he must have been in his teens at the time.

Nope, not confirmed anywhere. Reki Kawahara's Japanese wikipedia entry lists his birthdate as entirely unknown. It's not mentioned in any of his afterwords to my knowledge, which would explain why it isn't on wikipedia. Nor does it appear to be listed on his website.

In the best picture we have of him, he looks to be 30 years old +/- 5 years.

So it's theoretically possible for him to have been 15 when he posted SAO online back in 2002. However the odds are very, very low that was the case.

The blog tap-trans has some translations from the webnovel version of SAO, including some Q&A sessions with various characters, including "Kunori Fumio" aka Reki Kawahara. It dates back to 2005, and the questions he answers include:

"Q. What is your job?
A. There’s no connection to novels, but I’m doing something in a corner of the publishing business world."

"Q. What novels do you recommend aside from your own work?
A. It’s difficult with how many there are… Those from the all-time best would be Kanbayashi Chouhei’s [Sentou Yousei Yukikaze] & [Tamashii no Kudoutai], Oosawa Arimasa’s [Shinjukuzame] series, Tom Clancy’s [Jack Ryan] series and L. M. Bujold’s [Vorkosigan Saga] series, I suppose. I reread these books about once every year. "

SO he was out of school and employed in 2005. And of the novels he listed, here are their release dates:

Sentou Yousei Yukikaze (1984)
Tamashii no Kudoutai (1995)
Shinjukuzame series (seems to have started in 1991)
Jack Ryan series (started in 1984)
Vorkosigan Saga (started in 1986, mostly published between 1986 and 2002)

Seeing as the heaviest activity for those series was in the 80's and 90's, odds are against him being a huge fan of them, if he was 13 in 2000.

Furthermore, the answer's he had "Heathcliff" give include:

"Q. If I were to ask for you to mention one of the games you like best, which would it be?
A. If you mean aside from SAO, it would be Wizardry, a game from long ago. I acquired a lot of inspiration from it."

"Q. Please tell me what was the game you first played like.
A. It was an extremely old RPG known as Wizardry."

Seeing as the Skull Reaper is obviously based on the Sidelle monster from Wizardry, I'd say it's safe to bet that the Wizardry series was Reki's first RPG. And I'd be willing to bet on him first playing one of them on the NES or Gameboy back in the early 90s.

And of course he seems to have been playing MMORPGs for at least a few years as of the time he wrote SAO.

So the bottom line is that while there isn't any hard proof, his influences pretty much track with being in his late teens, or early 20s when he first wrote SAO.