List of Sword Art Online characters

The light novel, anime and manga series Sword Art Online contains a large cast of characters, most of whom are introduced as gamers who play and consequently become trapped in a virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game (VRMMORPG). The series chronicles their interactions in multiple online worlds: Sword Art Online (SAO), Alfheim Online (ALO), Gun Gale Online (GGO), and Underworld (UW).

Kirito
Kirito (キリト) Kazuto Kirigaya (桐ヶ谷 和人)

Kazuto, who uses the portmanteau "Kirito" as his character name, is a "solo" player who has been branded a "beater" (a combination of beta tester and cheater) by the players in Sword Art Online. When Kayaba announces that the players of Sword Art Online can no longer log-out without clearing the game, he quickly overcomes the shock. He power-levels to improve his odds of survival in the game, and emerges as a frontline floor-clearer known as the Black Swordsman (黒の剣士). In SAO, he is the sole «Dual Blades» skill user. During his time in SAO, he falls in love with a female player, Asuna, and even marries her in-game.

After the end of the Sword Art Online incident, 300 people have yet to wake up, including Asuna. He receives a picture from another VRMMORPG called Alfheim Online in which Asuna could be seen in a cage on the legendary World Tree, which no Alfheim player has ever reached directly. Kirito decides to get a copy of the game and rescue Asuna nonetheless. Shortly after joining Alfheim, he befriends another player called "Leafa" (who is actually his cousin Suguha). Leafa helps Kirito grasp the game and offers to help him reach the World Tree. After a long journey and many adventures, Kirito manages to reach the World Tree and overcomes its obstacles to reach the top. He rescues Asuna and discovers Leafa's true identity. As ALO and SAO share the same game engine, among other features, a bug allows Kirito to retain most of the skills and money he obtained in SAO upon playing ALO with the same Nerve Gear, already beginning his journey with an advantage over other players. Despite this, he ends up being forced to discard all of his items (except the one containing Yui, which reformats itself as a navigation pixie), as they were not recognized by the system.

He is later asked to register in Gun Gale Online in order to investigate real life murders that are somehow linked with assassinations in-game. It is soon revealed that the murders are committed by ex-players from Sword Art Online, who were part of a player killing group known as Laughing Coffin. His actions result in the capture of two out of the three culprits. The last member escapes and is not heard of until the events of volume 9, and is responsible for an attempted murder of Kazuto.

In the Alicization Arc, he has been assisting in the development of the fourth generation full dive interface, Soul Translator, by testing its thought acceleration functions. However, he has no memory of what he has been doing as a result of his memories being suppressed, voluntarily, by the system. He is attacked and poisoned by Johnny Black (The third culprit who escapes) in the real world and wakes up in Underworld with his memory of playing the game erased. He meets up with Eugeo and helps him out of some tough situations, during which he partially remembers his time with Eugeo and Alice during his "childhood" in Underworld. He then decides to aid Eugeo in finding Alice while he searches for a way out, back to reality.

In the real world, he lives with his mother, Midori, and younger sister, Suguha, in a family of three. In fact, he was actually adopted by Minetaka Kirigaya and Midori Kirigaya when he was just a year old, due to his real mother and father passing away after an accident. His real mother was actually Midori's sister, meaning his adopted mother is also his aunt. However, Kazuto did not know this until he discovered the truth at the age of ten, and Suguha, being in fact the Midori's own daughter, was also unaware of Kazuto's adoption and is in actuality his cousin.

Asuna
Asuna (アスナ) Asuna Yūki (結城 明日奈)

Asuna is a friend of Kirito, and a sub-leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath, a medium-sized guild acknowledged as the strongest guild in Aincrad. Being one of the few girls that play SAO and extremely attractive, she receives many invitations and proposals. Asuna is a strong-willed, accomplished player known in-game as the "Flash" (閃光) for her extraordinary sword skill.

Later, she falls in love with Kirito and they marry in-game. Towards the end of the SAO arc, she saves Kirito from a killing blow by Heathcliff at the cost of her life. However, her death was only in-game and she is shortly reunited with Kirito shortly after his death defeating Heathcliff.

Despite the completion of SAO, Asuna does not wake up and is instead detained in another VRMMORPG called Alfheim Online. She is forced to play the role of Titania the Queen of Fairies, with Nobuyuki Sugō, the man responsible for imprisoning her, playing as Oberon the Fairy King. This is done so that Sugō could marry Asuna in the real world, while she was unconscious, and thus take over RCT Progress Inc. She attempts to get out of the World Tree where she is imprisoned and escape going so far as to steal a GM card which she throws out of the window when she hears Yui's voice. Upon being freed she created two avatars for Alfleim, Asuna (being the healer of the team) and Erika (a battle type avatar) and went on living with Kirito.

In the real world, Asuna lives a very stressful life, and is constantly pressured to fulfill her parents' high expectations. Before the SAO incident, she led her life unquestioningly according to her parents' demands. However, after living in SAO and meeting Kirito, she gains perspective and looks back on her past with disgust. She eventually becomes Kirito's girlfriend, and dreams of marrying him and having a family with him in the real world.

Yui
Yui (ユイ)

Initially a side story character in SAO, Yui later becomes an accompanying/support character in ALO. At first thought to be a lost child in SAO, she is actually an artificial intelligence program. Her full designation is «Mental Health - Counselling Program», MHCP version 1, codename, «Yui». She was designed to monitor the emotions of players and appear at their sides to hear and help them out. However, since the moment everyone was imprisoned in Sword Art Online, she was forbidden to come in contact with the players and complete her prime directive. Unable to do anything but suffer as she monitored the emotions of the trapped players, she came upon Kirito and Asuna whose emotions stood out as a beacon of joy and peace in a sea of fear and despair. She sought them out, appearing to them as an amnesia child whom they adopted. In the end she was nearly deleted by Cardinal, the management system of SAO. But Kirito saved her by converting and storing her data into his own Nerve Gear. Yui later shows up in ALO as a Private Navigation Pixie and helps Kirito along with Leafa to find Asuna. She refers to Kirito as "Papa" and Asuna as "Mama" and gets very annoyed if any girl other than Leafa or Asuna gets close to Kirito. Kirito uses his skills and resources in the real world to construct a device for Yui to view the real world even while she is in virtual reality and gives her the ability to communicate with them.

Klein
Klein (クライン) / Ryōtarō Tsuboi (壷井 遼太郎)
 * (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English)

A friendly player that meets Kirito at the start of the game, who quickly befriends and learns from Kirito. They go their separate ways shortly after when Kirito leaves for another town to power level, while Klein remains behind to help out his less experienced friends. Klein uses a katana to fight and later becomes a leader of his own guild. He regularly meets with Kirito and his friends and occasionally joins them in quests in ALO, especially after the release of the World Seed.

Agil
Agil (エギル) / Andrew Gilbert Mills (アンドリュー・ギルバート・ミルズ)

A bald axe wielder who owns a shop in SAO. Agil is 180 cm tall with a muscular build. Despite his intimidating appearance, he is kind-hearted and spent most of his earnings to help players in the middle floors. Kirito is a regular in his shop and they are friends. Agil runs a shop named "Dicey Cafe" in the real world, which was run by his wife during his two-year coma. The cafe later becomes Kazuto and company's meeting place in the real world.

Heathcliff
Heathcliff (ヒースクリフ) / Akihiko Kayaba (茅場 晶彦)

Akihiko Kayaba is the Director and creator of the Nerve Gear and Sword Art Online, as well as the main antagonist of the Sword Art Online arc. He traps all the players within Sword Art Online by using the Nerve Gear to cease sending signals to the users' body. Any in-game death or attempt at removal of the Nerve Gear would result in the real life death of the user. Later, it is discovered that he has been masquerading as Heathcliff, the leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath. Although he has the admin powers to make his avatar immortal, he is shown to be a powerful player even without his in-game immortality due to his intimate understanding of the SAO game mechanics which he himself had designed. He is defeated by Kirito at the end of Volume 1 and, at the end of Volume 4, leaves behind a program that grants Kirito the World Seed. His death was his own doing since he had also rigged his own Nerve Gear device to fry his brain when he was defeated and transferring his soul into a digital form.

Argo
Argo (アルゴ)

A friend and fellow beta tester of Kirito in SAO. Known as "Argo the Rat" she works as a Knowledge Broker and messenger.

Silica
Silica (シリカ) / Keiko Ayano (綾野 珪子)

A side story character in SAO. One of the rare beast tamers in the game. Very early in the game, she was able to tame a small dragon, Pina (ピナ), who becomes her only real friend in the game; this feat gave her immense fame, but she was just a mid-level player. Due to her fame and being a girl, many tried to get on her good side, causing her to get a bit of an inflated head. She usually stay away from the males, who tried to marry her despite the fact that she was only 13. After getting lost in a forest, she lost Pina to a monster attack. Kirito rescued and helped her, as she resembled his sister, and helps her revive Pina. She gained feelings for him, but once she realized his skills, she realized that they could never be together in the game. Later on, it is revealed that Pina was revived. She joins Kirito and his friends in ALO right after they meet in the real world; they often go together in quests.

Lizbeth
Lisbeth (リズベット) / Rika Shinozaki (篠崎 里香)

A side story character in SAO, who is a blacksmith with her own shop. Lisbeth or "Lis" is a close friend of Asuna who recommended her to Kirito. Kirito commissioned Lis to forge a custom-made sword for him and accompanies her in a quest for the special ore required for the job. During the quest, she also develops feelings for Kirito. She is devastated when she finds out that Kirito is Asuna's crush. However, she finds some solace after Kirito thanks her for giving him a renewed determination to fight on and clear the game. Liz later becomes a regular player in ALO, and frequently joins Kirito and his friends in quests and takes up the task of upgrading their equipment.

Sachi
Sachi (サチ)

A side story character in SAO. She was a member of "Black Cats of the Full Moon" which was the first guild Kirito joined. Kirito was especially attached to her. However she died along with the majority of her guild members which led to Kirito wallowing in despair and self-loathing until he read the time delayed message she left for Kirito. Even after the message gave him the strength to live, he never joined another guild until the events of Volume 1.

Kuradeel
Kuradeel (クラディール)

A Two-Handed Sword user. Publicly a member of "Knights of the Blood" and secretly a surviving member of the red guild "Laughing Coffin". He has a grudge against Kirito and Asuna for destroying "Laughing Coffin". He was officially assigned as Asuna's bodyguard by "Knights of the Blood" and despite his grudge develops an obsession with Asuna and begins secretly following her everywhere. When he sees that Kirito and Asuna are developing a relationship, he challenges Kirito to a duel over who can protect her. Kirito wins and Kuradeel is forced to leave. He later tries to murder Kirito and then Asuna, but is instead killed by Kirito using an unarmed skill.

Other players

 * PoH is the leader of the SAO "Red player" guild, Laughing Coffin. He created the guild for the sole purpose of killing other players. His catch phrase is "It's showtime". His fate after SAO is unknown, but it is assumed he is still alive since he was not listed as one of the deceased players. PoH's real name is Vusago Casals. PoH stands for Prince of Hell and he work for a terroist/mercenary group during this arc. He is an illegitamate child of a Korean after a rape incident. The two migrated to Japan, and certain CEO fell in love with his mother and took them in. This was how he started his hatred against people. He is voiced by Tsuyoshi Koyama.


 * Sister Azariya (シスター・アザリヤ) is a teacher at the church in Rulid Village. She taught Alice the Sacred Arts and now teaches Selka the same. She houses orphans at the church. Does not remember Kirito.


 * Yolko (ヨルコ) is a member of the Golden Apple Guild. Her boyfriend is Kains. She is voiced by Nozomi Yamamoto and Natalie Hoover in English.

Leafa
Leafa (リーファ) Suguha Kirigaya (桐ヶ谷 直葉)

Suguha, alias Leafa, is Kirito's younger cousin in the real world. She is a diligent worker and has been practicing Kendo for 8 years. Kirito/Kazuto calls her "Sugu". After Kazuto gets trapped in Sword Art Online, she begins playing Alfheim Online in an attempt to understand him better. She develops feelings for Kazuto after she learns that he is not really her brother, but understands that his feelings for Asuna are too strong. Coincidentally, she meets Kazuto's avatar, Kirito, in Alfheim and aids him in his search for Asuna, unaware of Kirito's true identity. After understanding the depth of Kazuto's love for Asuna, she resolves to give up on him and instead becomes attached to Kirito in ALO, but later is heartbroken when she finds out that Kazuto and Kirito are one and the same. Nevertheless, she pulls herself together and aids Kirito in rescuing Asuna.

Oberon

 * Oberon the Fairy King (妖精王オベイロン) / Nobuyuki Sugō (須郷 伸之)

Nobuyuki Sugō is the main antagonist of the Alfheim Online arc. He is the one responsible for keeping 300 Nerve Gear victims, including Asuna, prisoner even after SAO had ended. He did this by transferring them all into ALO for experiments on human subjugation via fulldive technology. He also attempts to take over RCT Progress Inc. by marrying Asuna while she is unconscious. He displays a perverse interest in consummating this marriage while Asuna is still comatose. In ALO, he takes on the identity of Oberon the Fairy King and makes Asuna his queen, Titania. When he and Kirito finally meet, he flaunts his GM status as well as the results of his research by causing Kirito immense amounts of pain after increasing Kirito's pain limit and impaling him. He is defeated when the "Ghost Program" of Akihiko Kayaba reminded Kirito how he was defeated by Kirito's determination, before aiding him in overcoming Nobuyuki's GM status. All 300 victims are released from ALO, but Nobuyuki makes another attempt to attack Kirito while he is making his way to Asuna in the real world. However, he is once again subdued by Kirito, who puts the unarmed combat skills he had learned in SAO to useful effect. Nobuyuki is then arrested and charged for his crimes.

Sakuya

 * Sakuya (サクヤ)

During a meeting with the Cait Sith, she is attacked by Salamanders led by General Eugene. At the same moment, Kirito flies in to challenge the general to a duel. After Kirito wins the battle, she attempts to seduce him along with Alicia Rue. Leafa smothers their attempt, saying that she is accompanying him to the World Tree. At the end of the arc, Lady Sakuya leads a combined force of Cait Sith and Sylph against the World Tree's Guardians in an attempt to aid Kirito with the battle. After Kirito reached the top of the World Tree, she ordered her forces to pull back.

Recon

 * Recon (レコン) / Shin'ichi Nagata (長田 慎一)

Suguha's classmate in the real world. He introduced ALO to Suguha who asked him about VRMMO. In ALO, he is a Sylph dagger wielder and dark mage. He also displays an obvious romantic interest in Suguha, although the feelings are not mutual.

Eugene

 * Eugene ((ユージン)

General Eugene intended to disrupt the Cait Sith and Sylph alliance conference. Earlier, Recon manages to learn of the attack and warns Leafa. She and Kirito rush to stop the confrontation, but Eugene challenges the Spriggan to a one-on-one duel. At first, Kirito was forced to defend himself against the onslaught of the Earth-style weapon of Eugene, but Kirito takes Leafa's katana to prepare for his notable Dual Blades. With this extra blade, Eugene could not breach Kirito's defenses and was quickly defeated. After the duel, he was revived by Sakuya and leaves the scene with his forces on good terms.

Kagemune
Kagemune ((カゲムネ)

He led a group of Salamander lancers on a mission, to attempt to steal money and items from a Sylph party, including Leafa and Recon. When Recon died, all of the items in their party storage were transferred to Leafa, so his group followed Leafa in an attempt to steal from her, but the remaining members of his lance squad were overpowered by Kirito. After seeing how powerful Kirito was, he gave up and flew away, excusing himself by stating that he has been training his magic and he did not want his effort go to waste by the Death Penalty.

After Kirito's fight with Eugene, he lied about an Undine being in the party that wiped the party he led the day before, in order to support Kirito's story and convinced Eugene to believe that Kirito was an ambassador of a supposed Undine and Spriggan alliance.

Yuuki
Yūki (ユウキ) / Yūki Konno (紺野 木綿季) The main character in Volume 7. She was an Imp in ALO, she started dueling anyone promising an 11-hit OSS if she's defeated; due to her undefeated status she's given the title "Absolute Sword". Eventually Asuna fights her but loses. After the fight Yūki asks her to help defeating the 27th floor boss with her guild the Sleeping Knights. After certain events, which include the defeat of the 27th floor boss it is revealed that Yūki has AIDS and the Sleeping Knights members were patients in terminal state; with the time passing Yūki's condition gets worse and after she entrusts her OSS Mother's Rosario to Asuna she dies peacefully in ALO, surrounded by over 1000 players from every tribe in the game, including her guild members, Asuna and her friends.

Sinon
Sinon (シノン) Shino Asada (朝田 詩乃)

Shino, who goes by Sinon, is a female sniper whom Kirito first meets in Gun Gale Online. She has childhood trauma concerning guns and thus started playing Gun Gale Online in an attempt to overcome it. She is the owner of the rare gun "PGM Ultima Ratio Hecate II". She originally considers Kirito an opponent, but later develops feelings for him. She later joins ALO on their recommendation as a Cait Sith archer, wielding a long bow. In Gun Gale Online she is known as 'Hecate', while in real life Asuna gives her the nickname 'Sinonon'.

Death Gun
Death Gun (死銃) / Sterben
 * Death Gun is the main antagonist of the GGO arc. Apparently the people he kills in GGO, with his signature gun, end up dead in the real world. Death Gun was made by three players, two of them former members of the red SAO guild Laughing Coffin, that killed players for fun while knowing the consequences of doing so. It composes of:


 * Shōichi Shinkawa (新川 昌一) Red-Eyed XaXa
 * He along with Johnny Black originally met Kirito in SAO's Inner-Area incident. His younger brother is the third member of the trio. Both XaXa and his brother are arrested after the GGO arc.


 * Atsushi Kanemoto / Johnny Black
 * He along with XaXa originally met Kirito in SAO's Inner-Area incident. In Volume 9, he returns and attempts to kill Kirito and Asuna in the real world. While Kirito was able to protect Asuna, Johnny Black was able to poison Kirito which nearly killed him and caused Kirito to suffer brain damage, which he may not recover from.


 * Kyōji Shinkawa (新川 恭二) Spiegel (シュピーゲル)
 * Shino's friend both in the real world and GGO, in fact he was the one who introduced Shino to GGO in the first place. Kyōji wasn't trapped in SAO or affiliated with Laughing Coffin, but the pressures of being the next heir to his family due to his elder brother's frail health in the real world had a great psychological effect on him. Shōichi's tales as a red player also helped set him further down the path to murder and madness. He was the one who came up with the whole idea of Death Gun and enlisted the aid of the other two.
 * Both the Shinkawa brothers were captured by the police at the end of the GGO/Death Gun incident, but Johnny Black escapes and later attacks Kirito, successfully injecting him with poison, in the Alicization arc.

Alice Schuberg
Alice Schuberg (アリス・ツーベルク) A mysterious girl who was Kirito's "childhood friend", along with Eugeo, in UnderWorld. She is captured and supposedly taken away to be executed by the Integrity Knights for breaking the rule by "entering" the Dark Territory. She contacted Kirito, in spirit form, and aided in Eugeo's healing, showing that she is still alive and remembered both of them. She also implored them to come find her. It is later revealed, first in a short story, that she had become an Integrity Knight, and is confirmed in Volume 11 of the light novels.

Selka Schuberg
Selka Schuberg (セルカ・ツーベルク) Younger sister of Alice and an apprentice of Sister Azariya. She is capable of wielding the Sacred Arts but dislikes being compared to her sister. Does not remember Kirito but is put in charge of him upon his "return".

Eugeo
Eugeo (ユージオ) A young lad who was also Kirito's "childhood friend", along with Alice, in UnderWorld. Has his memories of Kirito purged, along with the rest of the villagers, but recovers them later on, to a certain degree. He has a strong desire to find Alice and, in order to do so, Kirito teaches him his "Aincrad-style" sword skills.

Cardinal
Cardinal (カーディナル) The Cardinal System, the one with complete control and authority in SAO, it controls everything. In ALO, the only other VRMMORPG to have it, it has partial control. During the Alicization Arc, in the Underworld, it takes the form of a scrawny 10-year-old girl, who lives in the Great Library Room. Cardinal does not have any control of the Underworld, and only has powers in the Library because Quinella used the System Control Authority to revoke Cardinal's rights.

Quinella
Quinella (クィネラ) The true ruler of Underworld, the highest minister of the Axiom Church, and the main antagonist of the Underworld arc. 350 years before Kirito would enter the Underworld, Quinella was born. She was given the sacred task of studying the Sacred Arts. Soon, she learned that by killing others, one's stats could be raised, so every night she snuck out and killed the animals of the forest, which would respawn everyday anyways. She raised her stats to a ridiculously high level, and decided to take control over the Underworld. Fooling people into believing she was a god, she created the Axiom Church, and made laws to control the people. She studied the Sacred Arts intensely, trying to find a way to transcend the limit of that world, the < > of that world. She finds the System Control Authority command on the brink of death, and immediately uses it to heal herself, restoring her beauty and < > to her former appearance as a youth.

Ronye Arabel
Ronye Arabel (ロニエ・アラベル) Kirito's valet in the Sword Mastery Academy. She ranked in the top 12 of her year, thus qualifying her to be a valet of an elite swordsman. Since she was of the lowest Noble Class, along with Tiese, she was not chosen by any of the elite swordsman except for Kirito who opted to take the last remaining valet.

Tiese Schtrinen
Tiese Schtrinen (ティーゼ・シュトリーネン) Eugeo's valet in the Sword Mastery Academy. She ranked in the top 12 of her year, thus qualifying her to be a valet of an elite swordsman. Since she was of the lowest Noble Class, along with Ronye, she was not chosen by any of the elite swordsman except for Eugeo who opted to take the last remaining valet. She entered the Academy in order to raise her family's social status.

Other players

 * Bercouli (ベルクーリ)


 * Fanatio (ファナティオ)


 * Deusolbert (デュソルバート)


 * Eldrie Woolsburg (エルドリエ・ウールスブルーグ)

Other characters

 * Midori Kirigaya (桐ヶ谷 翠) is Suguha's mother, as well as Kirito's aunt and foster mother in the real world. She cares deeply for both her children.  In Volume 10, she is assured by the authorities of Kirito's safety.  In reality, Kirito's comatose body was kidnapped by Kikuoka Seijirou.  When Asuna and Suguha tried to tell her their suspicions, she did not believe them. She is voiced by Aya Endō and Amanda C. Miller in English.


 * Shōzō Yūki (結城 彰三) is Asuna's father and CEO of RCT Progress Inc. He is voiced by Kazuhiro Yamaji and Keith Silverstein in English.


 * Silver Crow (シルバー・クロウ) / Haruyuki Arita (有田 春雪) is the main character of Accel World, another of Reki Kawahara's light novels who appears to confront Kirito in a crossover side story.