Anime Recommendation: Sword Art Online

If you haven’t already heard about it, Sword Art Online is an awesome new show currently being streamed on Crunchyroll. The show is about this new virtual reality MMORPG in the not-to-distant future. The game is called Sword Art Online. Played with a new device called a Nerve Gear, the players mind is fully immersed into the virtual world. The game itself has a pretty sweet concept as there is no magic in the game, only melee combat. Only 10,000 lucky gamers manage to get a copy of the game. As they all log in to this incredible virtual world, they begin their adventure to conquer the 100 levels of the game.

Not long after they begin playing, the players realize that they cannot log out! Every player is teleported to the center of the main town where the Game Master informs them that the lack of a log out button is not a design flaw or a bug, but that in order to leave the game, they must beat it. Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough, should their avatars die, the players will die in the real world as well. The show is basically a really cool Tower of Druaga, .hack crossover. We’re only two episodes deep and I’m already hooked. Once again, you can check out episode one here.