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- Naked People Are Funny: While hardly seen in the main series, and even then it's largely Downplayed due to characters ending up in their underwear at worst, side stories will often use this for the sake of both humour and Fanservice.
- After both survive an attack from Kuradeel, Kirito suggests that he and Asuna spend the night together to better watch out for assassins, but the the way he phrases it makes it sound that he wanted to continue off from their Big Damn Kiss. So after dinner, Asuna strips to her underwear and demands he do the same, at which point Kirito realizes his screw-up and explains what he really meant. Cue an embarrassed Asuna hitting him with an unarmed Linear, with him getting protected by the safe-zone's protection system.
- History Repeats when Kirito meets Sinon, who mistakes him for a girl due to his feminine avatar and him playing along to avoid her assuming that he's trying to flirt with her. When they both sign up for the BoB and enter what Kirito doesn't realize is a changing room, she's quick to strip off her casual clothes to get into her combat gear in front of him. Embarrassed, he bows in apology and shows her his menus profile to reveal his true gender to her. After taking some time to process this and realize that she stripped in front of some random guy, Sinon gets pissed and slaps him hard enough to bypass the safezone's protection and leave a red imprint on his face!
- During Unital Ring after the mysterious merge, Kirito unequips his gear in hopes that it would allow him to equip his insanely heavy sword to cut logs with. The sword doesn’t become any lighter, at which point he realised that there’s a grace where players are unaffected by the weight of currently equipped items, which ends after a set time or if anything they have on their person is unequipped. Meaning Kirito ended his grace period early is stuck in only his boxers until Liz comes by and is able to give him new armour. Naturally, he becomes the victim of Asuna, Alice and later Leafa pointing out the sorry state he’s in and frequent hard slaps to his unprotected back.
- The "One Thousand and One Nights" Quest that Kirito does in the Aincrad: Night of Kirito manga sub-series, requires him to avoid getting into bed with the female associates that are summoned, or else they will lose all of their clothing and armour. Meanwhile, they instead think they're on a quest to get in bed with the "princess", which the system has them see Kirito as. And to prevent him from simply explaining the situation to the girls to make things easier, he himself will suffer the same penalty if any of the summoned participants figure out his true identity. While largely played for Fanservice, a lot of the humour derives itself from how utterly ludicrous the scenarios themselves are.
- On the 1st night, Asuna is the visitor. Kirito is almost tempted to get in the bed with her because of her natural kindness and how enamoured he is with her, even composing a short poem in his head. He's able to resist, which prompts Asuna to hug him from behind... before German suplexing him onto the bed. Kirito then reverts to his original appearance, during which he covers his eyes awaiting her wrath, while Asuna gets stripped and becomes utterly embarassed.
- You knew it was gonna be bad when Strea appeared on the 3rd Night. While she's not able to actually force Kirito into the bed, her mentioning of the "Queen of Serpents"note , her equipment was changed to a Modesty Towel.
- On the 4th night, Yui actively tries to force Kirito into bed with Asuna out of worry about his "cheating" throughout the quest, one attempt involving a "yes or no pillow". While Kirito is able to avoid it, Asuna is reverted to the state she was in after her first visit while still holding the pillow, creating a provocative image that catches Kirito and Lisbeth (who came along) off-guard.
- On the 6th night, Klein and Agil appear after they're mistaken for female players for cross-dressing as Asuna and Leafa, and he's able to use his girl Avatar to get free items from them. Klein however is able to figure out that it's him based on what he asked for and his general behaviour, which, under the rules of the quest, reverts him back to his male appearance and leaves him naked in front of them and Yui, much to his mortification. Fortunately, the system recognizes the error and gives him his stuff back by Night 7.
- On night 7, Leafa and Sinon are summoned, with Kirito hoping that they can actually use the wait it out tactic he thought they would on the 4th night. However, Yui feels left out and wants to also get in the same bed as Kirito, which he refuses to for... obvious reasons. In response she tries seducing him, clearly not knowing what it actually means, and tries doing this by dressing up as other characters, which Sinon uses to distract her when Yui tries imitating her and asks for her advice. It seems like they've managed to dodge the bullet... before Leafa trips and lands on Kirito, causing her to lose her equipment with Kirito unintentionally groping her, prompting Yui to react with horror and go on about he could be arrested and sent to court, with Sinon unhelpfully chipping in.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Player-Killer guild "Laughing Coffin", though they're not that powerfulnote . Any AI opponent whose name starts with "The" is a boss. Not something you want to try fighting alone, or even with your six best friends well, unless you're Kirito. "The Skull Reaper" does double-time for fearsomeness, and more than lives up to that name in combat. "The Fatal Scythe" does triple-time until killed by Yui.
- Necessary Evil: In Progressive, Kirito, along with his neutral companions, seem to view the rivalry between the Aincrad Liberation Squad and Dragon Knights Brigade as this. It's acknowledged that it's one of the major contributors to the Frontline's divided status and that their drive to one up the other may eventually lead to someone getting hurt or killed, which does happen when the Infamous Floor 25 boss fight causes the ALS to drop out of the Frontlines due to their massive casualties, and that something like a third, equally or more powerful guild would be required to keep them in check. However, the reason it's necessary at the time is because not only does the Frontlines get plenty of players fighting for it as a result, but that the same drive to best the other motivates the players to train and fight hard in the Boss Fights. The "Necessary" part is emphasized on Floor 5, where Morte informing the ALS, through Joe, that the Floor Boss drops the Flag of Valor, a special item that that provides a buff to all stats to players in the same guild as the wielder, creates the very real risk of the DKB dropping out because they Can't Catch Up in light of this powerful advantage and would more than likely refuse to merge with the ALS due to ideological differences, which would cause a dramatic drop in numbers.
- Nerves of Steel: Kirito has his moments of angst but usually when it hits the fan, he's the one least visibly freaked out.
- New Life in Another World Bonus: Kirito's hugely boosted stats in the VR game are explained by his having been a beta-tester for the game, in effect getting a head start compared to other players. The GGO arc also has Kirito discovering that the developers used the same engine as Sword Art Online for their game and his avatar's insane power level carries with him as an unexpected Old Save Bonus.
- His real cheat is the ability to rapidly pick up new games in absurdly short times at the highest level. This is best demonstrated in his ability to defeat the previous The Ace in a game he just logged into.
- Never Bring A Bow To A Sword Fight: Subverted. Sinon's first appearance has her cherry tapping a boss using a sniper rifle, and she catches a sword at twice the listed range of her weapon, so it's more a case, when facing her of...
- Never Bring A Knife To A Gunfight: Defied by Kirito. In GGO, a gun-based MMO, Kirito chooses a light saber as his primary weapon despite it being viewed as useless by practically every other player because of its poor range. He makes it work.
- Although her ALfheim Online character is an Undine Healer, Asuna still carries her rapier, and she's only gotten better since her Sword Art Online days.
- Never Sleep Again: It turns out some player killers challenge people to duels and attack them while they're asleep.
- New Game Plus:
- What Kirito finds out about his avatar after he logs into ALO for the very first time. Because ALO uses a slightly earlier version of the same system as SAO, all of his skills that are common to both games and his money from SAO transfer over to his freshly-made character, though his HP, Items, and Equipment do not.
- When he later transfers from the revived SAO to GGO, he does much the same thing, though he arranges to store his items and equipment with Agil's shop so they won't have to be deleted. Because of the Seed forming the basis of all the new generation games, characters are increasingly capable of transferring from game to game, though incompatible items and such are still deleted.
- News Travels Fast: After Kirito defeats the 74th floor's boss with Dual Blades, which until then had been a secret, word quickly gets out, and he's eventually known as the player who possesses this rare skill.
- Kirito lampshades this when Argo sends him an apologetic congratulatory message, after the 1st level boss is defeated.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Kirito believes he did this when the Black Cats of the Full Moon was mostly wiped out.
- Nintendo Hard: The beta testers for SAO only made it to the tenth floor over a one-month period, and it took players two months after the official launch just to clear the first floor's boss.
- Nobody Poops: Volume 20 reveals that the denizens of Underworld literally never have to use the bathroom. Asuna is a bit perturbed at this.
- No Export for You: In-universe: Apparently only Japan (and by extension, USA if Zaskar is really based on the USA) got the full functionality of The Seed Nexus, neighboring countries did not, which is enough to aggravate a POV character in later chapters of Alicization.
- Noisy Guns: This trope is actually lampshaded by Reki Kawahara in his live commentary of SAO II
. The Type 54 pistol Death Gun uses, in reality, is a very tightly-fitted gun that would not be making random clicking noises when he brandishes it. Kawahara himself apologizes on behalf of any irritated viewers, as this is an Omnipresent Trope in visual media. - Non-Indicative Name: SAO players who commit crimes have their player cursors go from green (civilian) to orange (criminal). The term "red player" is used to describe murderers, but their cursors are still only orange; red cursors highlight monsters.
- Noodle Incident: Kirito's last black longcoat was custom-made by Ashley, the renowned #1 tailor of SAO and who is very beautiful. Lisbeth suspiciously notes that Ashley will only take requests on custom-made items that interest her. Kirito nervously dodges the question, and we never do find out exactly how Kirito got Ashley to create his longcoat.
- How Kirito and Argo met and learned that each other was a beta tester.
- Normally, I Would Be Dead Now/Last Breath Bullet: Kirito's health is reduced to zero during his fight with Kayaba, and the game gives him the "You are dead," message, but he uses the lag between his health hitting zero and him vanishing into light to deliver a blow to wipe out Kayaba's HP.
- Not Disabled in VR: The Sleeping Knights is a Guild entirely composed of terminally ill players. Exaggerating it even further, their leader is Konno Yuuki, who is dying of AIDS and has been voluntarily living in a virtual environment 24 hours a day for three years — a whole year longer than the victims of the SAO incident were trapped in the game. It's pointed out that the Medicuboid, the device that Yuuki is testing, is meant to dull the feelings of pain in real life, serving as a tool for palliative care, although in Yuuki's final moments, she barely has the strength to speak, even online.
- Not the Intended Use: Outside System Skills, skills and abilities players use that are not programmed in the game. Notable ones are:
- Switch: A player switches with their partner after attacking the enemy, offsetting it, and the partner does a follow-up attack so the former can recuperate.
- Skill Connect: In ALO, Kirito discovers he can chain One-Handed Sword Skills in order to compensate for not having the Dual Blades skill in the game. He uses One-Handed Sword Skills and controls his left and right arms separately. He has to be sure the timing of the next move is precise or it fails.
- Arms Blast: Kirito attacks the weakpoint of the opponent's weapon to destroy it.
- Spell Blast: In ALO, where Sword Skills also have magic attributes imbued, Kirito can cut magic spells. His inspiration comes from his slicing bullets in GGO.
- "Not So Different" Remark: This is the reason why Liena chose Kirito as her page, seeing his unorthodox Aincrad Style to be similar to her family's Serlut Style. This ends up working out in the long run for her, since seeing Kirito score a tie against Volo with his Aincrad Style gives her the motivation to finally best him.
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- Oblivious to Love: Sorta Justified for Kirito since he already has a girlfriend so he doesn't really pay attention to other girls. It initially appeared that he was quite oblivious to Asuna's feelings for him, despite Furinkazan's knowing smiles, but quickly wises up after Kuradeel tries to kill them.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Kirito attempts to refuse Kikuoka's offer to help him investigate the deaths of certain high-ranking GGO players in Episode 1 of Season 2, stating he doesn't want to risk getting killed after hearing about the unusual circumstances surrounding said deaths. However, Kikuoka says that if they can't get to the bottom of this and solve the mystery, the government may start to restrict access to online games, which goes against what Kayaba was hoping to promote when he gave Kirito "the seed" from season 1. Kirito reluctantly agrees to help him out by playing GGO.
- Official Couple: Asuna Yuuki and Kazuto Kirigaya (despite his growing list of fangirls).
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Two are used in Episode 3 of the first season:
- The first is when Klein and his guildmates hold off some members of the Holy Dragon Alliance to buy Kirito some time so he can find a seasonal event boss. Kirito later returns to find them exhausted but victorious despite having been outnumbered.
- The second occurs shortly after the first one, when Kirito rushes towards Nicholas the Renegade. He later returns to Klein, and gives him the item he received for defeating the boss monster. What makes it fit the trope is the fact that this boss was supposed to take a group to defeat, and Kirito manages to solo it.
- A later example occurs during the Phantom Bullet arc's Bullet of Bullets tournament. After agreeing to work together to track down Death Gun, Kirito and Sinon split up to track down one of the two remaining Death Gun suspects, "Gunner X". However, shortly after splitting up, Sinon is paralyzed by the real Death Gun who is about to kill her. Well, fortunately, in the two or three minutes in which all of this occurs, Kirito finds "Gunner X," who is actually a female player named "Musketeer X," duels her and defeats her, and then proceeds to use her gun and smoke grenades to drive Death Gun off, saving Sinon. We're only ever treated to a shot of what Musketeer X looked like, as well as her avatar's corpse, and not the actual fight itself.
- In the Mother's Rosario arc, Yuuki straight-up beats Kirito in a fair duel, which largely happens offscreen in the light novel version. In the manga, however, there's an extra chapter showing Yuuki's first duel with Kirito, and in the anime, the last part of their second duel is briefly shown.
- Oh, Crap!: Quite a few happen throughout the series:
- Kirito in Volume 1, upon realizing that he's in a Crash-Into Hello situation with Asuna, and his hand has been automatically groping her, and he can't remember any of the placating statements he prepared in case he ever got into this situation.
- Kirito and Lizbeth, upon realizing that the cave they took shelter in is the nest of a high-level dragon boss... and it's coming home for breakfast (i.e. them).
- A Titan's Head player, upon realizing that the swordsman escorting the low-level Dragon Tamer they're targeting is none other than the Black Swordsman.
- It's compounded when the guild realizes, to their terror, that not only does Kirito outlevel them by a significant degree, his healing factor counteracts all damage they do to him.
- Kirito again, when Sugou attempts to knife him in the real world.
- And consequently, Sugou when he realizes Kirito could do the same to him not a minute later.
- Level Bosses also tend to cause this reaction — prominent examples are Kirito & Asuna's reaction to seeing the Level 74 boss, and when the Level 75 boss casually oneshots several clearers.
- In Episode 2 of Season 2, Sinon and her pug crew shit themselves when they realise the unknown target they'd dismissed is the well known mercenary player Behemoth, who's packing a minigun.
- Even better, Sinon herself wanted to snipe him first over the guy packing a light machine gun (FN Minimi) specifically due to the fact that he was an unknown.
- Kirito once again has this look in Episode 5 of Season 2 after he wins his first match, and is approached by Death Gun. The latter, aside from looking very frightening and being way too close for comfort to Kirito, also asks some unusually specific questions to him, such as his name and use of a sword in his match. Kirito surmises that Death Gun is someone he knew in SAO, a fellow survivor, but isn't sure who it is. Death Gun's Laughing Coffin tattoo narrows it down a little for him, but he's still not sure who that guy is.
- Kirito has another moment of this when he realizes one of the three Death Gun suspects in the Bullet of Bullet tournament, a guy named Pale Rider, isn't Death Gun [[spoiler because he's about to be killed by the real Death Gun instead]]. He immediately starts yelling at Sinon to shoot before Pale Rider is killed.
- Asuna has a small moment when, after refusing an Arranged Marriage from her mother, learns that her mother is fine with it, as long as it's not someone from her school, and she's horrified that her mother knows about Kirito.
- Ojou: Asuna happens to be the daughter of the CEO of RECTO, which later on becomes the only producer of the improved version of NERVgear called Amusphere.
- Old Save Bonus: When he starts playing ALO, Kirito discovers that the game is a slightly earlier version of SAO, so all of his previous skills and stats that are in both games are converted over (his equipment, however, is corrupted and has to be discarded). Since he was one of the highest level players in SAO, and having nearly maxed many of his skills, he's automatically one of the strongest players in ALO and can defeat most players with just starter/NPC equipment.
- Becomes an official ability for any player, with the launch of "The World Seed". As all games run on the same software, players can transfer, and convert their characters between games, with the games calculating the equivalent stats, but have no access to any items or currency from the other game.
- Older Than They Look: Perhaps not the case for Kirito, as he was a beta player for SAO, but Asuna initially assumes this is the case due to Kirito's experience in the game, only to be shocked that she is actually a year older than him.
- One-Hit Kill: What makes the Skull Reaper truly terrifying is its ability to do this.
- One-Man Army: All the integrity knights in Alicization. 50 of them can basically intimidate the entire dark kingdom, at least before Vector shows up. Especially the higher order knights and their ultimate weapon skills, which can range from a laser in the form of concentrated sunlight to a storm of sword particles.
- Of course, Kirito and Eugeo in Alicization, whose own weapon skills are ridiculous AoE attacks. How strong are they? When Kirito finally dual wields after his recovery, he deep freezes a 30,000 strong army in an instant!
- Special note to Asuna and Leafa in Alicization, both of whom fend off thousands of mooks to save their respective allies.
- Orphaned Etymology: Lampshaded in Moon Cradle. Asuna notices that there are some phrases that the people of the Human Empire use that they really should not even know about, such as "shit" (because Nobody Poops, they should have no concept of what excrement is) and "swing and a miss" (a phrase derived from baseball when no such equivalent sport exists). The simple answer is that Underworld was created by people from the real world who ostensibly let slip in some popular phrases used in real life.
- Our Kobolds Are Different: The first boss from the second episode, Illfang the Kobold Lord, is a hulking, muscular, large-bellied kobold with greyish (in the manga) or red (in the anime and games) fur and a kangaroo-like design.
- Our Pixies Are Different: The world of Alfheim Online features Navigation pixies like Yui, who have the appearance of winged humans and are small enough to perch on one's hand. They also typically wear a flower dress.
- Out of Focus: Asuna is built up as Kirito's partner and Love Interest in the first arc, but then reduced to a Damsel in Distress for the second arc and all but Put on a Bus for the third, both of which bring in new girls to fill her place (not romantically, though). Then inverted in the fifth arc where she's the protagonist. She continues to have a large role in the sixth arc.
- Override Command: Occurs throughout the series:
- In the SAO arc, Akihiko Kayaba, playing as the character "Heathcliff", uses his Administrator rights to be treated as an Immortal Object once he hits 50% HP. To further protect the illusion, an Auto Block trait activates, meaning no matter what, he will automatically move to position his shield perfectly to block any attack for no damage received. When his identity is revealed, Kayaba turns both off but inflicts the paralysis status on everyone else but Kirito for a final duel.
- ALO: Nobuyuki Sugou/Oberon uses his admin powers to use an over-powered Gravity spell that was still in beta testing to prevent Asuna and Kirito from moving, then uses it to generate Excalibur, the strongest sword in the entire game and decreases the safety levels on the pain inhibitors. Kayaba's uploaded consciousness doesn't take kindly to such tactics, though, and gives Kirito his top-level Administrator access to turn the tables on Sugou. This allows Kirito to enjoy a Catharsis Factor moment by showing just how weak Sugou really is without his false power to help before starting a Curb-Stomp Battle with their own actual skill levels at fighting, and the pain limiter set to Zero.
- Yui, being a high level A.I. of the Cardinal system, likewise has unique powers at her command. As all full versions of the Cardinal systems were designed to be self-sufficient, with minimum input needed from a human game master, including fixing bugs and glitches, automatically adding quests and updates, Yui likewise has access to a number of features her self. She can override parts of the system when needed, or provide information to Kirito, Asuna, and the others as needed as to how the game is behaving.
- A number of players, especially Kirito and Asuna, have managed to exceed normal limitations of the system. These "Outside System Skills" are often plausible, typically using game skills in ways the devs didn't mean for them to be used, such as Kirito using Sword Arts to target an enemy's weapons or spells to destroy them, or timing their use so that he can activate multiple Sword Arts in a row with two swords, switching between them, so that while one's cooldown is in effect, he can swing with the other. Others are using their own human abilities and skills, such as concentrating intensely to listen for someone moving through some bushes while ignoring the normal natural sounds of the wind, or using a sword to block bullets by using a prediction line to know where to hold the sword.
- There are other Outside System Skills, though, that go beyond the bounds of both using loopholes in game rules and even human ability, completely overriding them. Kirito has developed an ability known as "Hypersense" that can detect a player's "killing intent" before he's even seen or heard them, allowing him to react to ambushes. Asuna has been able to break games' Movement Speed caps, going faster than theoretically possible through any logical means, even managing to break out of supposedly unbreakable Paralysis status effects to take a fatal blow for Kirito in-game. How these are possible is not yet understood. The series introduces the theory of a Quantum Field, known as Fluctuating Lights (Fluctlight for short), specifically a person's consciousness or soul. If it's strong enough, the NERVgear or Amusphere headset reads it as an unusually strong mental command input, causing the game to temporarily override normal gameplay limits to comply with said input.
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- Parents Suck at Matchmaking: Both of Asuna's parents attempt to arrange marriages for her with disastrous results.
- While Asuna is trapped in SAO, her father Shouzou Yuuki betroths her to Nobuyuki Sugou in exchange for saving the Yuuki family from bankruptcy resulting from the legal shitstorm the incident caused in the real world. Unbeknownst to her father, 1) Asuna has already started a romance with Kirito in-game by this point, and 2) Sugou lusts after Asuna so much that he keeps her trapped in the network even after Kirito ends SAO, transferring her over to Alfheim Online to keep her for himself as his Fairy Queen.
- The "Mother's Rosario" arc is kicked off by her mother Kyouko taking a crack at it. She dislikes Kirito largely for classist reasons and hopes to match Asuna with the son of a wealthy family. Asuna meets a couple at first but only has eyes for Kirito, and finally succeeds in talking her out of the idea after getting her to log into ALO's recreation of Aincrad to show her what she finds so compelling about the virtual worlds.
- Player Killing: Though very rare, it does happen. There's an entire guild dedicated to it. Some of these incidents are due to the perpetrators not believing that killing another player would also kill them in real life, though it's noted that during the first year, despite there being around 1000 players choosing to become bandits in SAO, there was never a single incident of player killing. In later games, when players are no longer Killed Off for Real, PK becomes a core mechanic. In some, like ALO, PKing is the main point of the game.
- Plot Hole: Minor one. Shino strikes Kyouji with a portable stereo. Not ten seconds later, it's back on the table where she grabbed it from. Considering a minor focus was made on the stereo when she went for it, you'd think they'd have paid a little more attention to its magical return to the table.
- Plucky Girl: Silica is amoung the younger players and yet she manages the upper middle floors with spunk and her dragon familiar.
- Plug 'n' Play Technology: Character data in VRMMOs powered by "The Seed" is transferable between games. Kirito takes advantage of this when he transfers his play data from ALO to GGO: while items are non-transferable, his stats are, giving him an edge. This is approximately equivalent to being able to take a save file from, say, Pillars of Eternity and load it in Pathfinder: Kingmaker: after all, both games are isometric RPGs that use the Unity Engine so it should be easy-peasy, right? Right? Never mind the fact that both games were developed by different companies...
- Pocket Protector:
- In season 2, episode 14, Kirito narrowly avoids being poisoned by Kyouji because he hastily disconnected himself from the monitors at his Dive station and neglected to disconnect one of the electrode pads. Kyouji proceeds to inject him right on top of the pad, and although the needle has enough force to go through two layers of clothing it doesn't have enough force to go through two layers of clothing plus an electrode pad.
- Police Are Useless:
- The (Liberation) Army by the end of SAO is seen as ineffectual, inept and corrupt.
- Subverted however with the real life authorities. Although unable to do much in response to what happened with SAO, the government nonetheless steps in and guarantees the safety (and sanity) of the survivors. Not to mention assisting Kirito whenever possible afterwards.
- Position of Literal Power: The leaders of guilds (especially front-line guilds) have the best equipment, which tends to make them more powerful. Also, the game's boss monsters seem to play this fairly straight, if you can consider them to have "Authority." This takes a whole new level in Alicization, since "Authority" is how the strength and power of the A.I.s living in Underworld are measured.
- Post-Victory Collapse: Happens to Kirito after he defeats a floor boss in episode 9.
- Power of Love:
- Asuna's explanation for how she was able to pull her Big Damn Heroes moment, covering in five minutes a distance that took a full hour for Kirito's party. Granted, they weren't exactly sprinting, but still.
- Can also be considered during Kirito's final fight with Heathcliff; his HP had already been reduced to zero, his body was disintegrating, and he still pulled out Asuna's sword and stabbed Heathcliff in the chest. Similarly during Kirito's fight against Oberon, where he recovered from feeling the pain of swords rammed through his body without the usual pain-reducing technology and got up, gained GM privileges, proceeding to kick the ever-living daylight out of Oberon.
- Same fight: Asuna gets a really big moment when she takes a fatal blow from Heathcliff to save Kirito, overcoming her paralyzed status to do so. Heathcliff comments that it shouldn't be possible for her to have broken out of the paralysis and even lampshades it.
Heathcliff: So, things like this really do happen.
- Pragmatic Villainy: When Endo (trying to solicit money from Shino) is forced to exploit her PTSD with a finger gun, she lowers her demands from "Pay our train fare" to "Give us what you've got" due to Shino being about to vomit.
- Pre-existing Encounters: In all VRMMOs, although some enemies have some ways to conceal their presence in order to ambush players.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: This is seen more in comparison of Kirito's feelings towards Kayaba and those towards Sugou. Kayaba trapped 10,000 people in Aincrad so he could live out his Blue-and-Orange Morality dream of being the Big Bad and fighting the top player, which is a very nebulous and abstract goal, but one Kirito has a grudging respect for, given how everyone reacts upon Aincrad's reinstatement in ALO without its death game commitments. Kayaba's actions affected everyone trapped, but it wasn't personal towards anyone. Sugou is tarred with a much blacker brush, as he is engaged to Asuna in real life, thinks nothing of conducting mind control experiments on Asuna and 300 other SAO survivors trapped in ALO, and clearly has an obsession with breaking her spirit at the end of the "Fairy Dance" arc, coming very close to raping her in front of Kirito. Sugou is nothing but personal to Asuna and Kirito, so the audience hates him more completely than they do Kayaba, despite Sugou's crimes being much smaller in scale than Kayaba's.
- Product Placement: Since Bandai Namco Games directly handles the Video Game adaptations of the Sword Art Online franchise, other I.P.s can be promoted onscreen with little trouble. For example, Mito's professional skills in gaming during Sword Art Online The Movie Progressive Aria Of A Starless Night are shown by her playing the Real Life version of Tekken 7 (which is produced & owned by Bandai Namco Games). However, as of 2024 the Smartphone version of said game that she and Asuna are shown playing together In Universe during 2022 has yet to be released.
- Flashbacks to Mito's unhappy childhood sees her offering to play with other little girls what is clearly a Nintendo Switch console, which has also ported a sizable number Sword Art Online games on our side of the fourth wall.
- Retcanon: For the anime, replacing the original starting episodes.
- Psychopathic Man Child:
- In his final conversation with Kirito and Asuna, Kayaba reveals that his main motivation for everything he did was to make the play world that he had always imagined as real as possible. He seems for the most part to be largely blind to the moral or ethical implications of what he has done.
- The same could be said for Oberon/Sugou, a physically weak and morally spineless coward who puts up a respectable front but really just wants to slobber all over Asuna, both in-game and over her comatose body in real life, and throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way. The difference between Kayaba and Sugou is the former doesn't seem to see the inherent problems in his actions, and the latter knows and revels in the knowledge that he can do all the things in ALO that would see him ostracized in real life.
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- Rain of Arrows: Sinon does this in ALO, in addition to acting like a Cat Girl Legolas.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Those who victimize helpless children in the world of Sword Art Online are also cackling lunatics and animals with no respect for human life and dignity, just like the cast of Game of Thrones... but thankfully, rapists in the world of Kawahara Reiki always get what's coming to them... painfully, bloodily and messily.
- Real After All: Episodes 5 and 6 deal with an apparently impossible murder, and players are led to believe that it was done by Griselda's ghost. Kirito and Asuna discover how it was really done, but afterwards they catch a glimpse of Griselda at her grave.
- Real Is Brown: The trope is played in a subtle way: the environments of the battlefields in GGO are all a drab brownish color. Contrast with the much more vibrant and bright colors of SAO and ALO. It's certainly an accurate reflection of the usual color schemes FPS games use in Real Life vs. RPGs.
- Recap Episode: About once a season.
- The OVA, Sword Art Online EXTRA EDITION is a 1h 40 min. feature film. The first 80% of it is the characters remembering the events from the first season, framed by the simultaneous plots of a government agent interviewing Kirito for information about what happened in SAO (since, apparently, the data accessible from outside is extremely limited) and slightly Fanservice-y scenes of the girls teaching Suguha how to swim.
- In the second season, the fifteenth episode (though it's officially called episode 14.5), "Debriefing," is a more traditional recap episode where a voice-over from Sinon summarizes the Phantom Bullet arc over clips of recycled footage. However, it has a different opening and closing (in terms of visuals only) from the rest of the arc.
- The 19th episode ("18.5"), "Recollection", of Alicization has Kirito summarizing for the main female lead what happened in the arc so far. Again, has different opening and ending visuals from the rest of the arc. This one is also interesting in that in the following episode, the same exchange, in which Kirito agrees to tell her what is going on, plays out again (as if the recap episode didn't actually happen), but he says different things in place of the recap.
- Alicization: War of Underworld has a recap at the start of each of its two seasons: "Reflection" for the first Alicization season and "Reminiscence" for the first War of Underworld season.
- Recognition Failure: The SAO incident would have been the largest human-caused loss of Japanese life since WWII and the most people killed by a lone actor ever. By all logic, Kirito should be an A-list celebrity in Japan, and a GOD to its gaming community, but no one seems to recognize him, despite the re-use of his SAO avatar's name and appearance.
- Recycled In Space: It's like .hack in its initial premise. Interestingly, both were written more or less around the same time.
- The Aincrad arc is basically a Sci-Fi Western in virtual reality instead of space. 10,000 people find themselves in a frontier with no means of communication to the outside world, and they must struggle to survive amid a world full of hostile beasts and outlaws. The hero is the sheriff who brings order to this frontier, relying on his strength and a small posse.
- Red Baron:
- Kirito gets titled as "The Black Swordsman," and is pretty well-known in SAO.
- Asuna is known as "The Lightning Flash," due to being one of the fastest players. In one case, she covers a distance in five minutes that took Kirito's party one hour to travel to save Kirito from an Ax-Crazy guildmate no less. She's less keen on her ALO nickname, the "Berserk Healer."
- Sinon is also known as "Hecate" in GGO, both after her anti-material rifle, the 'PGM Ultima Ratio Hecate Ⅱ,' and for the Greek goddess associated with the underworld.
- Other characters get similar titles mentioned, though they're not often brought up. Kirito mentions to Sinon that Lisbeth is known as the "Swindlin' Blacksmith", and professional GGO player Yamikaze is infamous as the "Run-Gun Demon".
- Red Herring: The series leads you to believe that "Phantom Bullet" refers to Death Gun's bullet, but it actually refers to Sinon's sniping ability.
- Redshirt Army: The (Liberation) Army. A massive guild comprised of mostly low- to mid-level players with the intent of assisting the thousands of SAO players not on the front lines. They were influential to the game until they lost a staggering amount of their best players in the 25th floor boss battle. By the end of SAO the Army is 1/6th of the remaining players but is regarded as mostly ineffectual and often corrupt.
- Refuge in Audacity:
- How does Kirito prevent the leader of the Salamander army from assassinating the leaders of the Cait-Sith and Sylph factions? He shows up, declares himself ambassador of the Spriggan-Undine Alliance, and warns the Salamander general that if he attacks, he'll be at war with four races, not just two.
- It's also hilarious in hindsight when the reader recalls that Asuna's ALO race is Undine (although at the time he said it, she wasn't). From a Certain Point of View, Kirito is representing a Spriggan-Undine Alliance... all two members of it.
- From the Material Editions, in SAO, while trying to defend Argo from two "ninja players" from the Fūmaningun guild, Kirito claims that he is a secret agent of the government. Another hilarious in hindsight due to him working with the government to investigate the "Death Gun" rumors in GGO years later.
- Rewrite: The light novel version of SAO is actually a polished paperback remake of the original web novels.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Subverted in Episode 14. After Asuna's Heroic Sacrifice to save Kirito from a killing blow, she falls in Kirito's arms as her health bar hits zero and she disappears. After some despair, he slowly picks up Asuna's sword to use as his new off-hand sword, and stands up to renew his fight with Heathcliff as if he's going to get his revenge, but instead he's fallen into a Heroic Blue Screen of Death. His swing falls weakly, slowly, and with no technique. Kirito has no fight left in him. He is completely broken.
- Played mostly straight in the second arc. Although not exactly roaring, Kirito has no qualms about savagely killing Sugou's avatar Oberon when he sexually molests Asuna and gloats about his intent to rape her, both in-game and in the real world. Kirito cuts off one of his arms, then slashes him in half, and then throws his upper half in the air and lets him fall, impaling him through the eye onto his sword—all of this with the pain absorber set to 0, which means that not only can Sugou feel all of this but also his real body is affected.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Plenty of MMORPG terms are used, which makes sense since the cast are MMORPG gamers, after all. For instance, whenever characters fail at a strong effort of will, Kirito describes it as failing a saving throw.
- The Rule of First Adopters: It appears the SAO developers expected this, given that avatars are anatomically correct, and VR sex is actually possible, and practiced in-game.
- Rule of Symbolism: The first-monsters slain onscreen by major-protagonsits almost always are reflections of their personality. Kirito and Mito's first kills are both Dire Wolves, powerful and dignified loners who are loyal to a fault and defends those whom they love with terrifying fury. Asuna's first kill (in the Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night Motion Picture) is a Yellow Wasp: Swift, Elegant and will rush headlong with unstoppable momentum if given the right motivation. Klein, on the other hand, slays a Wild Boar, which like him seems crass and crude on the outside, but is headstrong, gentle and nurturing on the inside.
- Running Gag: Kirito's general approach towards awkward male-female interpersonal relationships is to run away. This includes to making his escape when Asuna invites him to stay overnight at her house... and meet her parents.
