10 years. 10 years of an anime celebrating the potential fictitious danger of a massively multiplayer online role playing game gone awry. Sword Art Online was first published in April 2009 as a light novel series, eventually gaining even more notoriety as an anime series with several seasons to its name. To celebrate the series’ decade long anniversary, the most popular anime that follows an MMORPG is getting its very own Instagram account.
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Crunchyroll broke the news on its Twitter Account that will specifically break down the series and its 10th anniversary celebration:
NEWS: Sword Art Online Series Launches Official Instagram Account to Celebrate 10th Anniversary
✨ More: https://t.co/KvUXJJexP3 pic.twitter.com/9UwqrYvhCt
— Crunchyroll @ #HimeBday 🎉 (@Crunchyroll) June 4, 2019
Sword Art Online has had several seasons to its name, with some seasons covering completely different genres of MMORPG game. Originally starting out with a fantasy setting, the initial premise saw a large number of players trapped within the video game. Should they die in the video game world, their bodies, which were connected to virtual reality equipment, would die as well. Viewers specifically followed the character of Kirito as he navigated the virtual world while trying to save his own life.
Aside from the light novel series and anime seasons to its name, Sword Art Online also unsurprisingly has a number of video games to its name, though ironically enough not any massively multi-player online role playing ones. While there have been other anime that cover MMORPGs, Sword Art Online is generally considered the most popular of the bunch.
What do you think of Sword Art Online’s 10th Anniversary Instagram account? What would you like to see posted on the account? Let us know in the comments or feel free to hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and massively multi-player online role playing games.
Sword Art Online was originally created by Reki Kawahara with illustrations provided by abec for ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Bunko line in 2009. The series follows a boy named Kirito after he and thousands of gamers get trapped in a virtual reality video game known as Sword Art Online. The gamers must band together to defeat the game’s final level to escape, but Kirito and his guild learn there is more behind their prison than they were originally told.
If you have yet to catch the new season of Sword Art Online’s anime adaptation, the original Japanese release of Sword Art Online: Alicization can currently be found streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu. The English dub of the series is now airing Saturday nights on Adult Swim’s Toonami block. The series will be returning for the second half of its Alicization season with War of Underworld in October.