The following is a list of characters from the light novel , anime and manga series Sword Art Online . Most of the characters are introduced as gamers who play and consequently become trapped in a virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game (VRMMORPG) Sword Art Online. The series chronicles their interactions in multiple online worlds: Sword Art Online (SAO), Alfheim Online (ALO), Gun Gale Online (GGO), and Underworld (UW).
151-2824: Nobuyuki Gender Male Origin Word/name Japanese Meaning Different meanings depending on the kanji used Nobuyuki (written: 信行 , 信之 , 信幸 , 信順 , 信孝 , 修之 , 伸行 , 伸之 , 伸幸 , 宣之 , 誠行 , 展之 or 演之 ) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: Nobuyuki Abe ( 阿部 信行 , 1875–1953) , Japanese general, politician and Prime Minister of Japan Nobuyuki Abe (footballer) ( 阿部 伸行 , born 1984) , Japanese footballer Nobuyuki Aihara ( 相原 信行 , 1934–2013) , Japanese gymnast Nobuyuki Anzai ( 安西 信行 , born 1972) , Japanese manga artist Nobuyuki Azuma ( 東 伸行 , born 1959) , Japanese fencer Nobuyuki Daishi ( 大至 伸行 , born 1968) , Japanese sumo wrestler Nobuyuki Ebisu ( 戎 信行 , born 1972) , Japanese baseball player Nobuyuki Fukumoto ( 福本 伸行 , born 1958) , Japanese manga artist Nobuyuki Hiyama ( 檜山 修之 , born 1967) , Japanese voice actor Nobuyuki Hosaka ( 保坂 信之 , born 1970) , Japanese footballer Nobuyuki Idei ( 出井 伸之 , born 1937) , Japanese chief executive Nobuyuki Iida ( 飯田 誠行 , born 1945) , Japanese handball player Nobuyuki Inoue ( 井上 信行 ) , Japanese video game developer Nobuyuki Kajitani ( 梶谷 信之 , born 1955) , Japanese gymnast Nobuyuki Kato ( 加藤 信幸 , born 1920) , Japanese footballer Nobuyuki Katsube ( 勝部 演之 , born 1938) , Japanese actor and voice actor Nobuyuki Kobushi ( 小伏 伸之 , born 1974) , Japanese voice actor Nobuyuki Kojima ( 小島 伸幸 , born 1966) , Japanese footballer Nobuyuki Nanbu ( 南部 信順 , 1814 –1872) , Japanese daimyō Nobuyuki Nishi ( 西 伸幸 , born 1985) , Japanese freestyle skier Nobuyuki Oda ( 織田 信行 , 1536–1557) , Japanese samurai Nobuyuki Oishi ( 大石 信幸 , born 1930) , Japanese footballer Nobuyuki Oishi (born 1974) ( 大石 信幸 ) , Japanese footballer Nobuyuki Otsu ( 大津 展之 ) , Japanese engineer Nobuyuki Sanada ( 真田 信之 , 1566–1658) , Japanese samurai and daimyō Nobuyuki Sato ( 佐藤 信之 , born 1972) , Japanese marathon runner Nobuyuki Suzuki ( 鈴木 伸之 , born 1992) , Japanese actor Nobuyuki Suzuki (actor, born 1963) ( 鈴木 伸幸 , born 1963) , Japanese actor Nobuyuki Takagi ( 高木 信孝 , born 1968) , Japanese manga artist Nobuyuki Tanaka ( 田中 伸幸 , born 1971) , Japanese botanist Nobuyuki Tsugaru ( 津軽 信順 , 1800–1862) , Japanese daimyō Nobuyuki Tsujii ( 辻井 伸行 , born 1988) , Japanese pianist and composer Nobuyuki Yashiki ( 屋敷 伸之 , born 1972) , Japanese shogi player Nobuyuki Zaizen ( 財前 宣之 , born 1976) , Japanese footballer Fictional characters [ edit ] Sugō Nobuyuki ( 須郷 伸之 ) ,
302-413: A kun -reading) ; kun -only are common for Japanese-coined kanji ( kokuji ). Some common kanji have ten or more possible readings; the most complex common example is 生 , which is read as sei , shō , nama , ki , o-u , i-kiru , i-kasu , i-keru , u-mu , u-mareru , ha-eru , and ha-yasu , totaling eight basic readings (the first two are on , while
453-536: A ⟨g⟩ element to encode any non-standard character or glyph, including gaiji. The g stands for gaiji . There is no definitive count of kanji characters, just as there is none of Chinese characters generally. The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten , which is considered to be comprehensive in Japan, contains about 50,000 characters. The Zhonghua Zihai , published in 1994 in China, contains about 85,000 characters, but
604-402: A "powerfully human" character, writing "Like with the classic Beowulf , Yuuki finds her meaning and immortality in the written word. For her, having her name (and those of her soon-to-pass-away friends) on a virtual wall for all eternity is proof that she existed. To her, even that is enough." Yuuki was awarded fifth in a Dengeki Bunko character poll for their light novels. A young lad who
755-446: A Mexican woman and a Japanese man, developing a hatred towards people of his father's ethnicity when he was forced to donate a kidney to his father's legitimate son. This motivated Vassago to take advantage of the SAO crisis to log in and establish the "Red player" guild Laughing Coffin, selling out his followers to the other guilds so he can watch the resulting carnage. Vassago resurfaces during
906-675: A character in the light novel series Sword Art Online See also [ edit ] 27716 Nobuyuki , a main-belt asteroid [REDACTED] Name list This page or section lists people that share the same given name . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nobuyuki&oldid=1159986202 " Categories : Given names Japanese masculine given names Masculine given names Hidden categories: Articles containing Japanese-language text Articles with short description Short description
1057-492: A diligent worker and has been practicing kendo for 8 years, partially to escape the loneliness and isolation in her life. After Kazuto Kirigaya (the name of Kirito in real life) gets trapped in Sword Art Online , she begins playing Alfheim Online as a Sylph in an attempt to try to understand him better, and it is at this time that she finds out they are cousins rather than siblings; with her mother revealing to her that he
1208-722: A dive into the Underworld with his memories of reality intact in order to buy them time for them to treat his brain damage. In the Underworld, Kirito grew up with his best friends Eugeo and Alice, and both him and Eugeo were tasked with the calling of cutting down the Gigas Cedar. However a trip to the End Mountains, resulted in Alice touching the Dark Territory, breaking the Taboo Index. Alice
1359-535: A false quest, to slaughter the native beasts to cripple the power of Urðr and her sisters so he can reach the surface of Alfheim and obtain the golden apple growing on top of the World Tree. But as Kirito and his party realize upon taking Urðr's quest to stop him, Thrym's actions would cause a chain of events that would result in the Ragnarok scenario and ultimately reset ALO. The group find Thrym and manage to defeat him with
1510-408: A fight which culminates with both of them letting down their guard expecting the other one to kill them, however that only leads to them hugging and apologizing to each other. Leafa lets go of her feelings for Kirito and after pulling herself together Leafa helps him rescue Asuna from the top of the world tree. Eventually Kirito manages to reach to the top of the World Tree and see Asuna again where he
1661-468: A fight which culminates with both of them letting down their guard expecting the other one to kill them, however that only leads to them hugging and apologizing to each other. Leafa lets go of her feelings for Kirito and after pulling herself together she helps him rescue Asuna from the top of the world tree. She regularly plays ALO together with Kirito, Asuna, Silica, Klein and the rest of their group. Leafa, Lisbeth and Silica also feature as protagonists in
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#17328448623481812-411: A god, and is torturing people just to make money. More than that, he is also constantly threatening to rape Asuna—both in the game and in the real world. Simply put, he has the greatest hallmark of a good villain: He is a guy you love to hate." Responding to criticism of Oberon being an "over-the-top" villain that is "comically evil", Karen Mead of Japanator.com found to be partially true, writing "would
1963-737: A label for its sound), kanji are also called mana ( 真名 , literally "true name", in reference to the character being used as a label for its meaning). In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write certain words or parts of words (usually content words such as nouns , adjective stems , and verb stems ), while hiragana are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings, phonetic complements to disambiguate readings ( okurigana ), particles , and miscellaneous words which have no kanji or whose kanji are considered obscure or too difficult to read or remember. Katakana are mostly used for representing onomatopoeia , non-Japanese loanwords (except those borrowed from ancient Chinese ),
2114-454: A long gairaigo word may be the reading (this is classed as kun'yomi —see single character gairaigo , below)—the character 糎 has the seven kana reading センチメートル senchimētoru "centimeter", though it is generally written as "cm" (with two half-width characters, so occupying one space); another common example is '%' (the percent sign), which has the five kana reading パーセント pāsento . There are many kanji compounds that use
2265-651: A memory. After certain events, which include the defeat of the boss it is revealed that Yuuki has HIV/AIDS and the guild members are patients in terminal state: to test the Medicuboid device, designed supposedly by Rinko Koujiro, in care for future patients. Yuuki forms a strong bond with Asuna, in reminder of her late elder twin sister Aiko Konno. With the time passing Yuuki's condition deteriorates and after she entrusts her OSS «Mother's Rosario» to Asuna before she dies peacefully in ALO, surrounded by over 1000 players from every tribe in
2416-614: A mixture of on'yomi and kun'yomi , known as jūbako ( 重箱 , multi-layered food box) or yutō ( 湯桶 , hot liquid pail) words (depending on the order), which are themselves examples of this kind of compound (they are autological words ): the first character of jūbako is read using on'yomi , the second kun'yomi ( on-kun , Japanese : 重箱読み ). It is the other way around with yu-tō ( kun-on , Japanese : 湯桶読み ). Formally, these are referred to as jūbako-yomi ( 重箱読み , jūbako reading) and yutō-yomi ( 湯桶読み , yutō reading) . In both these words,
2567-537: A morbid interest in the human soul as a child when he murdered his friend Alicia Klingerman, spurring him to utilize FullDive technology and became a legend in GGO as Subtilizer due his skills of predicting his opponents' moves and ambush them for a quick kill. Gabriel is later hired by the National Security Agency to acquire Alice's Fluctlight cube, developing an interest in her due to her resemblance to Alicia. During
2718-555: A more realistic character. In the game storyline, Thyrm emerged from Aflheim and used the stolen Excalibur to conquer the Hill Giants' realm of Jötunheim . With Jötunheim turned to a frozen wasteland after losing the World Tree's blessing, Thrym created his fortress Thrymheim from the frozen spring of the Hill Giant leader Urðr , after its waters were lodged in the tree's receding roots. Thrym then uses his forces, and players he recruits on
2869-430: A new kanji spelling is produced. Most often the word is a noun, which may be a simple noun (not a compound or derived from a verb), or may be a verb form or a fusional pronunciation. For example, the word 相撲 ( sumō , “ sumo ”) is originally from the verb 争う ( sumau , “to vie, to compete”), while 今日 ( kyō , “today”) is fusional (from older ke , “this” + fu , “day”). In rare cases, jukujikun
3020-520: A number of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning. Man'yōgana written in cursive style evolved into hiragana (literally "fluttering kana " in reference to the motion of the brush during cursive writing), or onna-de , that is, "ladies' hand", a writing system that was accessible to women (who were denied higher education ). Major works of Heian-era literature by women were written in hiragana . Katakana (literally "partial kana ", in reference to
3171-432: A party which takes part in the boss fight on the first floor and realizes during the fight that Asuna is also there and that she isn't dead. As Mito struggles to apologize to Asuna, Asuna reassures her that she wasn't wrong to do what she did after a pep talk by Kirito, and they join the fight with Kirito to defeat the first boss. When Asuna decides to follow Kirito up to the second floor, Mito bids her farewell and leaves with
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#17328448623483322-421: A play meant to pander to ' Big Brother Complex ' fans, though she does get some nice emotional development out of it and some very good scenes later on when the matter of her attempt to replace her misplaced love for Kazuto Kirigaya with Leafa's attraction to Kirito (who is also unknowingly her brother) blows up". Reviewing the spin-off manga Sword Art Online: Girls Ops , Martin praised it for Leafa's prominence in
3473-491: A player name Leafa, who is unknowingly, is his younger sister Suguha; who agrees to guide him to the head toward to the top of the giant World Tree, in order to get to Asuna. Arriving there and tried to get to the top of World Tree, but rescue by Leafa where he soon learns Leafa's identity as Suguha where Suguha reveals her feelings for him in the real world. Not knowing how to respond or comfort her, Kazuto tells her he will be waiting for her in game. When they meet up they engage in
3624-461: A pregnant woman, but lost control of the gun after Shino bit his hand. Afterwards, she shot him three times, killing him. Since that event, she developed a fear of guns, entering panic attacks whenever one is visible. As a result, she is bullied at school by her peers, with a finger gun being enough to trigger her phobia. To help ease her trauma, her friend Kyōji Shinkawa convinced her to play Gun Gale Online . Known as Sinon in-game, her main weapon
3775-531: A problem for information interchange, as the code point used to represent an external character will not be consistent from one computer or operating system to another. Gaiji were nominally prohibited in JIS X 0208-1997 where the available number of code-points was reduced to only 940. JIS X 0213-2000 used the entire range of code-points previously allocated to gaiji , making them completely unusable. Most desktop and mobile systems have moved to Unicode negating
3926-578: A reality. When his identity is exposed by Kirito, he challenges Kirito to a one-on-one duel where all of the remaining players will be logged out if Kirito is victorious. Following his defeat, he commits suicide by running a high output scan on his brain, but downloads his own consciousness into the server and leaves behind a program that gives Kirito the World Seed, which revitalizes the VRMMORPG industry. Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku compared Heathcliff poorly to
4077-471: A review of episode 15 – 25 in the Sword Art Online anime, went on to say that "Leafa shows more emotional strength as a heroine than Asuna ever did", and she "also stand[s] out as one of the more interesting, developed characters", due to not being overly reliant on Kirito. Silverman also found Kirito and Leafa's relationship to have developed more naturally than Kirito and Asuna's. In his Sword Art Online: Girls' Ops review, Theron Martin also wrote that "That
4228-557: A ridiculously high level and decided to take control over the Underworld. Fooling people into believing she was a goddess, she created the Axiom Church and made laws to maintain the people to a certain degree. In the process, she tried to find a way to transcend the limit of that world, the «Life» of that world. She unlocks the forbidden System Control Authority command on the brink of death and immediately uses it to recuperate herself, restoring her beauty and «Life» to her former appearance as
4379-589: A sea of fear and despair. She sought them out, appearing to them as an amnesiac child whom they adopted. In the end she was nearly deleted by Cardinal, the management system of SAO, but is saved by Kirito by converting and storing her data into his own NerveGear. 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 "Daddy" and Asuna as "Mommy" and gets very annoyed if any other girls try to flirt with Kirito, she also asserts Kirito not to keep any secrets from Asuna. Kirito uses his skills and resources in
4530-403: 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 an artificial intelligence . Her full designation is «Mental Health – Counselling Program», MHCP version 1, codename, «Yui». Yui is shown to have a human form and a Navigation Pixie form where she is always barefoot in both forms. She was designed to monitor
4681-512: A single word will have many such kanji spellings. An extreme example is hototogisu ( lesser cuckoo ) , which may be spelt in many ways, including 杜鵑 , 時鳥 , 子規 , 不如帰 , 霍公鳥 , 蜀魂 , 沓手鳥 , 杜宇 , 田鵑 , 沓直鳥 , and 郭公 —many of these variant spellings are particular to haiku poems. List of Sword Art Online characters#Oberon Sword Art Online has an extensive cast of fictional characters. The series focuses Kazuto Kirigaya as he attempts to clear and explore
Nobuyuki - Misplaced Pages Continue
4832-544: A solo player for the majority of the game. For being the first player to defeat the 1st Floor Boss, Kirito received a black leather trench coat that becomes his trademark appearance for the rest of the series. During the time Kirito spent in SAO, Kirito joined a guild named the Moonlit Black Cats, but he kept his character's level a secret, which resulted in the entire guild being killed by monsters, which led to Kirito wallowing in his despair and self-loathing until he read
4983-700: A spy for the Americans within the Ocean Turtle. Establishing the Seal of Right Eye, "Code: 871" based on the kanji in his name, Yanai played a role in establishing corruption with the Human Empire's nobility and became an admirer of Quinella as he secretly aided her. Following Quinella's death while aiding Gabriel's group, Yanai holds Higa at gunpoint and reveals his act of sabotaging UW and intention of keeping Kirito from being revived. But Kikuoka and Rinko realize Yanai's betrayal,
5134-406: A stalemate duel with Bercouli Synthesis One, Eugeo is captured by Quinella and turned into an Integrity Knight, becoming Eugeo Synthesis Thirty-Two ( ユージオ・シンセシス・サーティツー , Yūjio Shinseshisu Sātitsū ) . Eugeo broke free from Quinella's control, but he was bisected after dealing a critical blow to her and dies in front of a devastated Kirito. Eugeo tags alongside a young Alice to the afterlife. Amid
5285-473: A supporter of his peace campaign, Lipia found Vixur threatened upon the arrival of Emperor Vector sometime after Administrator's death. In an attempt to assassinate him, Lipia was strangled to death by Emperor Vector. Fu Zha is the leader of the Assassin's Guild who became loyal to Emperor Vector. When Vixur Ul Shasta tried to attack Emperor Vecta, Fu Zha was the one who used a poisoned needle to kill him. Hagashi
5436-450: A surname). This phenomenon is observed in animal names that are shortened and used as suffixes for zoological compound names, for example when 黄金虫 , normally read as koganemushi , is shortened to kogane in 黒黄金虫 kurokogane , although zoological names are commonly spelled with katakana rather than with kanji. Outside zoology, this type of shortening only occurs on a handful of words, for example 大元帥 daigen(sui) , or
5587-668: A total of 2,528 characters, showing the standard for kanji used by ministries and agencies and in general society. In 1946, after World War II and under the Allied Occupation of Japan , the Japanese government, guided by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers , instituted a series of orthographic reforms, to help children learn and to simplify kanji use in literature and periodicals. The number of characters in circulation
5738-463: A youth. After being critically wounded in a battle against Kirito, she attempted to preserve herself by leaving to the real world but was intervened by the gruesome senate Chudelkin, who set his body ablaze to reach her. With Quinella latched by Chudelkin, the two were soon engulfed by the flame and perished. Chudelkin was a dwarf-like creature that served as the Chief Elder ( 元老長 , Genrōchō ) of
5889-427: Is jukujikun for tonakai , from Ainu, but the on'yomi reading of junroku is also used. In some cases, Japanese coinages have subsequently been borrowed back into Chinese , such as 鮟鱇 ( ankō , “ monkfish ”). The underlying word for jukujikun is a native Japanese word or foreign borrowing, which either does not have an existing kanji spelling (either kun'yomi or ateji ) or for which
6040-517: Is Also a major character in Alicization. After Kirito disappears off the grid after Johnny Black's attack, Asuna discovers the existence of the Ocean Turtle and requested the help of Rinko Koujiro, who helped her get on board and convinced Kikuoka to let her stay. When the Dark Territory began their attack, Asuna logged into the Underworld under the super account, the Goddess of Creation, Stacia. Originally
6191-407: Is Asuna's classmate in middle school who consistently ranks number 1 in her school examinations. Although she looks like an impenetrable beauty and honors student to most students, she and Asuna regularly play video games after school on the roof after Asuna discovers that Misumi is secretly a hardcore gamer who participates in local tournaments. Misumi was a beta-tester for Sword Art Online and goes by
Nobuyuki - Misplaced Pages Continue
6342-446: Is a poor fighter and he is defeated by Kirito when the consciousness of Akihiko Kayaba reminded Kirito how he was defeated by Kirito's determination, before aiding him in overcoming Sugō's GM status by using his Kayaba ID Heathcliff and removing Oberon GM Status. Kirito then blinds and dismembers him after setting Sugō's pain limit to the maximum. All 300 victims are released from ALO, but Sugō makes another attempt to attack Kazuto while he
6493-450: Is a reading based on the pronunciation of a native Japanese word, or yamato kotoba , that closely approximated the meaning of the Chinese character when it was introduced. As with on'yomi , there can be multiple kun'yomi for the same kanji, and some kanji have no kun'yomi at all. Ateji ( 当て字 ) are characters used only for their sounds. In this case, pronunciation
6644-480: Is a strong-willed, and an accomplished player known in-game as "the Flash" for her extraordinary fast skills with the rapier. Later, she falls in love with Kirito and they marry in-game after saving him from being killed by Kuradeel. 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
6795-534: Is also applied to inflectional words (verbs and adjectives), in which case there is frequently a corresponding Chinese word. The most common example of an inflectional jukujikun is the adjective 可愛い ( kawai-i , “cute”), originally kawafayu-i ; the word ( 可愛 ) is used in Chinese , but the corresponding on'yomi is not used in Japanese. By contrast, "appropriate" can be either 相応しい ( fusawa-shii , as jukujikun ) or 相応 ( sōō , as on'yomi ). Which reading to use can be discerned by
6946-504: Is dead due to what happened in Underworld. He is then forcibly dragged to Hell by what appears to be Alicia and his other victims. The following are members of the Dark Territory's army that was used by Subtilizer in his Emperor Vector avatar: Vixur Ul Shasta is the commander of the Order of the Dark Knights. Unlike the rest of the Dark Territory's leaders, Vixur wanted peace and was against
7097-478: Is defeated by Kirito, who turns the mercenary into a Gigas Cedar tree to prevent him from logging out and going after his loved ones. As a result, due to the Underworld's time accelerating, Vassago's body in the real world aged rapidly and mysteriously disappeared as Critter and the rest of their group were collecting their dead comrades before escaping. A Two-Handed Sword user who is actually an unaccounted member of "Laughing Coffin" who escaped capture and infiltrated
7248-567: Is determined by contextual cues (such as whether the character represents part of a compound word versus an independent word), the exact intended meaning of the word, and its position within the sentence. For example, 今日 is mostly read kyō , meaning "today", but in formal writing it is instead read konnichi , meaning "nowadays", which is understood from context. Furigana is used to specify ambiguous readings, such as rare, literary, or otherwise non-standard readings. This ambiguity may arise due to more than one reading becoming activated in
7399-597: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Kanji Kanji ( 漢字 , Japanese pronunciation: [kaɲdʑi] ) are the logographic Chinese characters adapted from the Chinese script used in the writing of Japanese . They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequently-derived syllabic scripts of hiragana and katakana . The characters have Japanese pronunciations ; most have two, with one based on
7550-490: Is entirely different from the 'I love you, Oni-chan!', fetishism that we see all too often in anime [...] We get to know Suguha entirely too well for that", thus debunking criticism of "Suguha falling for Kirito [being] toxic, awful siscon crap". Noting that the focus shifts away from Asuna towards Leafa in the Fairy Dance arc, Anime News Network 's Theron Martin wrote in a review that "Suguha's unrequited love seems more like
7701-468: Is instead killed by Kirito at the last second. Nobuyuki Sugō is the main antagonist of the Alfheim Online arc. He is the one responsible for keeping 300 NerveGear 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 RECT Progress Inc. by marrying Asuna while she
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#17328448623487852-442: Is making his way to Asuna in the real world, now blind in one eye and insane after his defeat. However, he is once again subdued by Kazuto, who puts the unarmed combat skills he had learned in SAO to useful effect and ends up cutting his neck. Sugō later survives the cut and is then interrogated for his crimes. The character was lauded as an "excellent villain" by Kotaku's Richard Eisenbeis, describing him as "cowardly, fancies himself
8003-411: Is moving on from the incident, no longer vulnerable to her classmates' threats of using a gun on her. In Agil's café, Shino meets Asuna , Rika , and Sachie Osawa, a woman who had survived the post office incident, who convinces her that she had saved her and her daughter's life. Sinon eventually decides to play ALfheim Online with Kirito and his friends. One of the main characters from Volume 7. She
8154-728: Is not her biological brother, but is actually her cousin and was adopted into their family when he was young. This causes Sugu to develop feelings for him that she doesn't really understand; however, because he is trapped inside SAO , she never acts on them. That being said, when Kazuto awakens after his two-year ordeal, those feelings come back, but she realizes that he is already in love with someone else, namely Asuna. Coincidentally, she meets Kazuto's avatar, Kirito, in Alfheim Online after he saves her from an attack by player killers . Unaware of his true identity, she decides to help him on his quest to find somebody which eventually leads them to
8305-443: Is reunited with her little sister Selka. Setting up residence in a small house on the village outskirts, Alice cares for the catatonic Kirito and grows highly protective of him. Inspired by Kirito trying to save her village’s people despite his crippled state, Alice later participates in the war against the Dark Territory. She gets kidnapped by Gabriel Miller, but is rescued through the efforts of Bercouli, Sinon, Kirito and Asuna. She
8456-953: Is still based on a standard reading, or used only for meaning (broadly a form of ateji , narrowly jukujikun ). Therefore, only the full compound—not the individual character—has a reading. There are also special cases where the reading is completely different, often based on a historical or traditional reading. The analogous phenomenon occurs to a much lesser degree in Chinese varieties , where there are literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters —borrowed readings and native readings. In Chinese these borrowed readings and native readings are etymologically related, since they are between Chinese varieties (which are related), not from Chinese to Japanese (which are not related). They thus form doublets and are generally similar, analogous to different on'yomi , reflecting different stages of Chinese borrowings into Japanese. Longer readings exist for non- Jōyō characters and non-kanji symbols, where
8607-589: Is subsequently taken away, and Kazuto awakens in reality. When he returns after his attack, he has his memories from reality intact and meets Eugeo. He helps Eugeo cut down the Gigas Cedar and the two depart for the Central Cathedral, where they both enroll in the Swordsman Academy in North Centoria. Several months in, the two prevent a rape on their pages and kill their abductors, which causes them to break
8758-411: Is the main antagonist of the GGO arc, a player killer whose victims somehow die in the real world after being shot by his signature gun, a Type 54 "Black Star" he named «Death Gun». In reality, Death Gun's actual user name is Sterben and is an alternate account created by Kyōji Shinkawa in the image of his brother's SAO avatar. He and his brother, a former member of the red SAO guild Laughing Coffin, used
8909-567: Is the « PGM Ultima Ratio Hecate II » sniper rifle, which she earned after defeating a monster in a dungeon. Shortly before the Bullet of Bullets (BoB) tournament, Sinon encounters Kirito , deciding to help him after believing he is female due to his avatar. After Kirito's true gender was revealed, an angered Sinon attempts to leave him, but they meet again during the BoB. The two are confronted by Death Gun , who causes Sinon's PTSD to relapse when his weapon
9060-453: Is then sent to the real world and taken into the protective custody of Rinko Koujiro. She is given an android body created in her likeness, and officially revealed to the world as the first Bottom-Up AI in a press conference organized by Rath. Alice was awarded fourth in a Dengeki Bunko character poll for their light novels. An anime original character for the Progressive movies, Misumi
9211-460: 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 critically damaging Kirito by increasing Kirito's pain limit and impaling him. However unlike Kayaba, he
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#17328448623489362-516: The Nihon Shoki and Kojiki , a semi-legendary scholar called Wani was dispatched to Japan by the (Korean) Kingdom of Baekje during the reign of Emperor Ōjin in the early fifth century, bringing with him knowledge of Confucianism and Chinese characters. The earliest Japanese documents were probably written by bilingual Chinese or Korean officials employed at the Yamato court. For example,
9513-406: The kyōiku kanji, plus 1,110 additional kanji taught in junior high and high school. In publishing, characters outside this category are often given furigana . The jōyō kanji were introduced in 1981, replacing an older list of 1,850 characters known as the tōyō kanji ( 当用漢字 , general-use kanji) , introduced in 1946. Originally numbering 1,945 characters, the jōyō kanji list
9664-474: The on'yomi has a long vowel; long vowels in Japanese generally are derived from sound changes common to loans from Chinese, hence distinctive of on'yomi . These are the Japanese form of hybrid words . Other examples include basho ( 場所 , "place", kun-on , 湯桶読み ) , kin'iro ( 金色 , "golden", on-kun , 重箱読み ) and aikidō ( 合気道 , the martial art Aikido ", kun-on-on , 湯桶読み ) . Ateji often use mixed readings. For instance,
9815-651: The Latin alphabet , Cyrillic script , Greek alphabet , Arabic numerals , etc. for use in information processing. They have had numerous revisions. The current standards are: Gaiji ( 外字 , literally "external characters") are kanji that are not represented in existing Japanese encoding systems . These include variant forms of common kanji that need to be represented alongside the more conventional glyph in reference works and can include non-kanji symbols as well. Gaiji can be either user-defined characters, system-specific characters or third-party add-on products. Both are
9966-462: The "Knights of the Blood Oath". He was officially assigned as Asuna's bodyguard and despite his grudge, he develops an obsession with Asuna and begins to 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
10117-572: The 1,026 first kanji characters that Japanese children learn in elementary school, from first grade to sixth grade. The grade-level breakdown is known as the gakunen-betsu kanji haitōhyō ( 学年別漢字配当表 ) , or the gakushū kanji ( 学習漢字 ) . This list of kanji is maintained by the Japanese Ministry of Education and prescribes which kanji characters and which kanji readings students should learn for each grade. The jōyō kanji ( 常用漢字 , regular-use kanji) are 2,136 characters consisting of all
10268-493: The 5th century AD and has since had a profound influence in shaping Japanese culture, language, literature, history, and records. Inkstone artifacts at archaeological sites dating back to the earlier Yayoi period were also found to contain Chinese characters. Although some characters, as used in Japanese and Chinese, have similar meanings and pronunciations, others have meanings or pronunciations that are unique to one language or
10419-408: The 75th Floor Boss. He faced him in a one on one duel with a condition; to allow every player to logout if Kirito wins, and manages to defeat him ending SAO with a total of 6,147 survivors. Despite the completion of SAO, Asuna remains unconscious and Kirito learned from Agil that Asuna is trapped in another virtual reality called Alfheim Online. Logging into Alfheim Online to rescue her, where he meets
10570-481: The 7th century, a record of trading for cloth and salt. The Japanese language had no written form at the time Chinese characters were introduced, and texts were written and read only in Chinese. Later, during the Heian period (794–1185), a system known as kanbun emerged, which involved using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read Chinese sentences and restructure them into Japanese on
10721-471: The Axiom Church in Underworld, working directly under Supreme Priest Quinella. He has a twisted and sinister infatuation with Quinella. Chudelkin burned to death alongside Quinella at the end of the battle at the top of the Central Cathedral. Yanai is a Rath technicians who was previously worked for Sugou during the Alfheim arc via a slug-like avatar, selling out his co-worker to avoid criminal charges and becoming
10872-493: The BoB. However, angry at Kirito, he attacks her with intentions of raping and eventually killing her, revealing himself to be Death Gun's creator. Shino manages to resist his attack and escape, but is stopped by Kyōji before she could exit the house; Kirito arrives and fights Kyōji, the latter eventually being knocked out by Shino throwing her stereo at him. After the Death Gun incident, Sinon seems to have gotten over her fear and
11023-610: The Chinese pronunciation but was not the Chinese pronunciation or reading itself, similar to the English pronunciation of Latin loanwords. There also exist kanji created by the Japanese and given an on'yomi reading despite not being a Chinese-derived or a Chinese-originating character. Some kanji were introduced from different parts of China at different times, and so have multiple on'yomi , and often multiple meanings. Kanji invented in Japan ( kokuji ) would not normally be expected to have on'yomi , but there are exceptions, such as
11174-536: The Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After the Meiji Restoration , Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as shinjitai , by a process similar to China 's simplification efforts , with the intention to increase literacy among the common folk. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct
11325-423: The Death Gun account to commit murder: Kyōji normally posing as Sterben and using a «Metamaterial Optical Camouflage Mantle» to spy on other players inputting their real life details so his brother can make his way to the house of a potential victim to inject the person with succinylcholine , a drug capable of stopping the heart, at the exact moment the victim's player is shot. During the Bullet of Bullets Tournament,
11476-683: The Integrity Knights for breaking the law by "entering" the Dark Territory. Years later Alice contacted Kirito, in spirit form, as well as aided in Eugeo's healing, showing that she is still alive and remembered both of them. She also implored them to come and find her. It is later revealed that she had become an Integrity Knight in Volume 11 of the light novels. Her name as an Integrity Knight is Alice Synthesis Thirty ( アリス・シンセシス・サーティ , Arisu Shinseshisu Sāti ) . Having lost her childhood memories due to
11627-419: The Japanese court. In ancient times, paper was so rare that people wrote kanji onto thin, rectangular strips of wood, called mokkan ( 木簡 ). These wooden boards were used for communication between government offices, tags for goods transported between various countries, and the practice of writing. The oldest written kanji in Japan discovered so far were written in ink on wood as a wooden strip dated to
11778-566: The NerveGear, and later joined the official version of the game where he became one of the 10,000 players trapped in Sword Art Online. During the start of SAO, he befriended a girl named Asuna. During the 1st Floor Boss, as Illfang the Kobold Lord's weaponry and attack patterns differed from the beta, while the raid party relied on Argo's published beta test version of information about it, Diavel
11929-478: The SAO Survivor School with Kazuto Kirigaya in the real world after everything ended. In the real world, Asuna's parents want her to follow in their footsteps. However, after living in SAO and meeting Kirito, she gains a different perspective and looks back on her past with disgust. She officially becomes Kazuto's real-life girlfriend and dreams of marrying him and having a family with him in the future. Asuna
12080-579: The Synthesis Ritual, Alice is initially cold and hostile towards Kirito and Eugeo. After Kirito reveals the truth about her former identity and the corruption behind Administrator's rule, Alice chooses to join Kirito and Eugeo in their battle to defeat Quinella. Though they are successful in killing Quinella, Eugeo lost his life and Kirito was left comatose. Worried for Kirito's safety after having bonded with him, Alice takes him with her to Rulid Village where she
12231-500: The Taboo Index to save his disciples who are almost raped by nobles who had a grudge towards him and Kirito, becoming the first AI fluclight to successfully break the "Seal of the Right Eye". As a result of their "crime", Eugeo and Kirito come into conflict with the Integrity Knights of the Church as they fight to save Alice and free the Human Empire from the tyranny of Quinella. After coming to
12382-496: The Taboo Index. The two are imprisoned, but escape and are saved by Cardinal, who gives them the skills and knowledge they need to take down the Integrity Knights, defeat Administrator, and fight the impending invasion by the Dark Territory. The two trek their way up the tower. They defeat Deusolbert, the Integrity Knight who took Alice away. They outsmart Linel and Fizel, the two youngest Integrity Knights. After defeating Fanatio,
12533-427: The Underworld arc as an employee of Glowgen Defense System and Gabriel Miller's right hand, taking on the account of a Dark Knight to oversee the Dark Territory's invasion. But Vassago, learning of Kirito's presence while losing his account, uploads his PoH account into Underworld and manipulating American, Korean and Chinese gamers into slaughtering the Underworld's residents and the Japanese players' avatars. But Vassago
12684-557: The World Tree where she is imprisoned and manages to steal a GM card, and is caught, and sent back after two slime guards verify she is the captive. When Yui's voice is heard, she throws the GM card down to her. Upon being released, she creates two avatars for Alfheim, Asuna (the Undine Healer) and Erika (and the Sylph battle character), and went on to continue living together with Kirito. She enrolls at
12835-417: The brain. Kanji readings are categorized as either on'yomi ( 音読み , literally "sound reading" ) , from Chinese, or kun'yomi ( 訓読み , literally "meaning reading" ) , native Japanese, and most characters have at least two readings—at least one of each. However, some characters have only a single reading, such as kiku ( 菊 , "chrysanthemum", an on -reading) or iwashi ( 鰯 , "sardine",
12986-687: The broader sense "nowadays" or "current", such as 今日的 ("present-day"), although in the phrase konnichi wa ("good day"), konnichi is typically spelled wholly with hiragana rather than with the kanji 今日 . Jukujikun are primarily used for some native Japanese words, such as Yamato ( 大和 or 倭 , the name of the dominant ethnic group of Japan, a former Japanese province as well as ancient name for Japan), and for some old borrowings, such as 柳葉魚 ( shishamo , literally "willow leaf fish") from Ainu, 煙草 ( tabako , literally “smoke grass”) from Portuguese, or 麦酒 ( bīru , literally “wheat alcohol”) from Dutch, especially if
13137-533: The brothers switched roles while enlisting another Laughing Coffin member to assist them due to the multiple victims they selected. The King of the Frost Giants and final boss of the Calibur side story, Thrym is an artificial intelligence that ALO's Cardinal System created from the actual Norse myth. But in a departure from usual NPCs, Thrym is one of few whose core programming is connected to ALO's language engine to be
13288-506: The care of Tiese and Ronye, who are both devastated to hear of Eugeo's death. He is later found and attacked by PoH during the Underworld War, but the memory fragments Eugeo left behind to him caused his fluctlight to be restored. Now awakened, Kirito forcingly logged out the remaining foreign players attacking Underworld and defeated PoH before going out with Asuna to rescue Alice. The main heroine of Sword Art Online and main protagonist of
13439-400: The character 働 "to work", which has the kun'yomi " hatara(ku) " and the on'yomi " dō ", and 腺 "gland", which has only the on'yomi " sen "—in both cases these come from the on'yomi of the phonetic component, respectively 動 " dō " and 泉 " sen ". The kun'yomi ( 訓読み , [kɯɰ̃jomi] , lit. "meaning reading") , the native reading,
13590-431: The characters' individual on'yomi or kun'yomi . From the point of view of the character, rather than the word, this is known as a nankun ( 難訓 , "difficult reading") , and these are listed in kanji dictionaries under the entry for the character. Gikun are other readings assigned to a character instead of its standard readings. An example is reading 寒 (meaning "cold") as fuyu ("winter") rather than
13741-514: The characters, and only infrequently as konchō , the on'yomi of the characters. The most common reading is kesa , a native bisyllabic Japanese word that may be seen as a single morpheme , or as a compound of ke (“this”, as in kefu , the older reading for 今日 , “today”), and asa , “morning”. Likewise, 今日 ("today") is also jukujikun , usually read with the native reading kyō ; its on'yomi , konnichi , does occur in certain words and expressions, especially in
13892-450: The city of Sapporo ( サッポロ ), whose name derives from the Ainu language and has no meaning in Japanese, is written with the on-kun compound [札幌] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |4= ( help ) (which includes sokuon as if it were a purely on compound). Gikun ( 義訓 ) and jukujikun ( 熟字訓 ) are readings of kanji combinations that have no direct correspondence to
14043-476: The console to contact Rath, but Rath was under attack, and Kirito's fluctlight became damaged. Alice returned to Rulid Village with Kirito after the battle with Administrator, and took care of him. She notes that it was because of him, she hung up her sword. After the Dark Territory had begun their plans to attack the Human World, Alice is forced to go back to the front lines and took Kirito with her, leaving him in
14194-482: The context of SAO's world." Theron Martin of Anime News Network found Sugō's character to an "over the top villain" and "the second arc's biggest stumbling block". However, Rebecca Silverman (also of Anime News Network) disagreed, writing "Sugou actually feels the least over-the-top as he plots how to use the VR technology for his own ends [when compared to the other characters]", and praised him as "nicely evil". Death Gun
14345-517: The death of Heathcliff. Despite the completion of SAO, Asuna remains unconscious and is instead detained in another virtual reality called Alfheim Online. She is forced to play the role of «Titania the Queen of Fairies», with Nobuyuki Sugou, the man responsible for imprisoning her, playing as Oberon, the Fairy King. This is done so that Sugou could marry Asuna in the real world, while she is unconscious and thus take over RCT Progress Inc. She attempts to escape
14496-484: The diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of Liu Song in 478 AD has been praised for its skillful use of allusion . Later, groups of people called fuhito were organized under the monarch to read and write Classical Chinese . During the reign of Empress Suiko (593–628), the Yamato court began sending full-scale diplomatic missions to China, which resulted in a large increase in Chinese literacy at
14647-618: The education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3,000 kanji used in Japanese names and in common communication . The term kanji in Japanese literally means " Han characters". It is written in Japanese by using the same characters as in traditional Chinese , and both refer to the character writing system known in Chinese as hanzi ( traditional Chinese : 漢字 ; simplified Chinese : 汉字 ; pinyin : hànzì ; lit. ' Han characters'). The significant use of Chinese characters in Japan first began to take hold around
14798-410: 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
14949-574: The entire word—rather than each part of the word being centered over its corresponding character, as is often done for the usual phono-semantic readings. Broadly speaking, jukujikun can be considered a form of ateji , though in narrow usage, " ateji " refers specifically to using characters for sound and not meaning (sound-spelling), whereas " jukujikun " refers to using characters for their meaning and not sound (meaning-spelling). Many jukujikun (established meaning-spellings) began as gikun (improvised meaning-spellings). Occasionally,
15100-490: The first such [ Sword Art Online spin-off] manga would feature Silica, Lisbeth, and Leafa is [...] no surprise, as fans have clamored for the former two in particular to get more attention ever since they were first introduced". Sinon is the main character of the Phantom Bullet Arc. When she was two years old, her father died in a car accident. Nine years later, while at a post office, an armed robber attempted to shoot
15251-462: The fly, by changing word order and adding particles and verb endings, in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar . This was essentially a kind of codified sight translation . Chinese characters also came to be used to write texts in the vernacular Japanese language , resulting in the modern kana syllabaries. Around 650 AD, a writing system called man'yōgana (used in the ancient poetry anthology Man'yōshū ) evolved that used
15402-494: The game, including her guild members, Asuna and her friends. Sword Art Online girls (including Yuuki) feature in a merchandise lottery by Bandai, where they are depicted in french maid clothing with cooking utensils, with Anime News Network humorously noting that they have "brought in a pretty penny for the franchise's creators." She also features in promotional advertisements for a series of Umaibo puffed corn snacks by Namco . Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku complimented Yuuki as
15553-477: The game, which has led to their deaths in the real world. Kirito enters GGO and meets Sinon, who believes he's a girl due to his avatar, but she later discovers his true gender. Despite so, she continues to help Kirito prepare for the next Bullet of Bullets, which is where Death Gun is subjected to appear. However, when the two first meet, Kirito discovers that Death Gun is a former member of Laughing Coffin. The BoB began, and Kirito learns of Sinon's past. After most of
15704-625: The help of a NPC named Freyja , who was revealed to be Thor in disguise. 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. As a descendant of a wicked founder, she inherited unethical knowledge by studying the Sacred Arts intensely. Soon, she learned that by killing others, ones' stats could be heavily raised, so every night she would sneak out and kill animals, which would respawn everyday anyway. She raised her stats to
15855-433: The historical male name suffix 右衛門 -emon , which was shortened from the word uemon . The kanji compound for jukujikun is often idiosyncratic and created for the word, and there is no corresponding Chinese word with that spelling. In other cases, a kanji compound for an existing Chinese word is reused, where the Chinese word and on'yomi may or may not be used in Japanese. For example, 馴鹿 (“reindeer”)
16006-399: The job to Asuna and Shino, he asks Asuna to go to America with him in an effort to witness the true embarking of full-dive technology, which she agreed. However, they are ambushed by Johnny Black, who puts Kirito into a coma. After being diagnosed with brain damage, Kazuto is taken by Kikuoka and the Japanese government to the Ocean Turtle, a base out at sea run by Rath. There, they put him into
16157-604: The latter saving Higa by dropping a heavy wrench that caused the startled Yanai to lose his balance and fall down a shaft to his death. Critter is a hacker consultant who works in the Glowgen Defense Systems' cyber operations department where he works under Gabriel Miller and Vassago Cassals. He was the one who found the accounts of Emperor Vector and the Dark Knight which weren't password-locked for Gabriel and Vassago to use. When Miller and Vassago end up dying, Critter and
16308-412: The limitation of kanji. After the Meiji Restoration and as Japan entered an era of active exchange with foreign countries, the need for script reform in Japan began to be called for. Some scholars argued for the abolition of kanji and the writing of Japanese using only kana or Latin characters. However, these views were not so widespread. However, the need to limit the number of kanji characters
16459-705: The majority of them are not in common use in any country, and many are obscure variants or archaic forms. A list of 2,136 jōyō kanji is regarded as necessary for functional literacy in Japanese. Approximately a thousand more characters are commonly used and readily understood by the majority in Japan and a few thousand more find occasional use, particularly in specialized fields of study but those may be obscure to most out of context. A total of 13,108 characters can be encoded in various Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji . Individual kanji may be used to write one or more different words or morphemes , leading to different pronunciations or "readings." The correct reading
16610-485: The maximum declaring the pain was much more painful in SAO compared to ALO. After rescuing Asuna, he soon receives a program from Kayaba called the World Seed which revitalizes the VRMMORPG genre, after Kirito has it upload by Agil on the Internet. Several months later, Kazuto is recruited by Kikuoka to investigate a serial killer known as Death Gun, a "player" in the game Gun Gale Online. GGO players are being killed by him in
16761-491: The name Mito in the game, and is the one who encourages Asuna to log in to SAO on the day of release so that they can play together. After the SAO players are trapped in the game by Kayaba, Mito and Asuna travel and train together in order to get stronger and eventually clear the first floor. However, due to an accidental encounter with a horde of pitcher plant monsters, Mito is forced to abandon Asuna in order to save herself, an act which she felt extremely guilty of. She later joins
16912-482: The names of plants and animals (with exceptions), and for emphasis on certain words. Since ancient times, there has been a strong opinion in Japan that kanji is the orthodox form of writing, but there were also people who argued against it. Kamo no Mabuchi , a scholar of the Edo period , criticized the large number of characters in kanji. He also appreciated the small number of characters in kana characters and argued for
17063-407: The need for gaiji for most users. Nevertheless, they persist today in Japan's three major mobile phone information portals, where they are used for emoji (pictorial characters). Unicode allows for optional encoding of gaiji in private use areas , while Adobe's SING (Smart INdependent Glyphlets) technology allows the creation of customized gaiji. The Text Encoding Initiative uses
17214-604: The original list published in 1952, but new additions have been made frequently. Sometimes the term jinmeiyō kanji refers to all 2,999 kanji from both the jōyō and jinmeiyō lists combined. Hyōgai kanji ( 表外漢字 , "unlisted characters") are any kanji not contained in the jōyō kanji and jinmeiyō kanji lists. These are generally written using traditional characters, but extended shinjitai forms exist. The Japanese Industrial Standards for kanji and kana define character code-points for each kanji and kana , as well as other forms of writing such as
17365-456: The other players have been taken out, Kirito and Sinon team-up to devise a plan to take down Death Gun. Kirito deduces Death Gun's method of killing and faces him in a battle, winning. He warns Sinon to be careful as he logs out. Once he did so, he rushed over to Shino Asada's (Sinon's real life identity) house and saves her from the Death Gun killer on the reality side, Kyoji Shinkawa. The two reconvene with Kikuoka, who then also discover that there
17516-411: The other surviving participants of the boss battle. Her original avatar in SAO resembles an old dwarf. Akihiko Kayaba is the director and creator of the NerveGear and Sword Art Online , as well as the main antagonist of the SAO arc. He traps all the players within SAO by using the NerveGear to obstruct signals from the user's brain. Any in-game death or attempt at removal of the NerveGear would result in
17667-474: The other. For example, 誠 means 'honest' in both languages but is pronounced makoto or sei in Japanese, and chéng in Standard Mandarin Chinese . Individual kanji characters and multi-kanji words invented in Japan from Chinese morphemes have been borrowed into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese in recent times. These are known as Wasei-kango , or Japanese-made Chinese words. For example,
17818-456: The people nearby as they couldn't leave by teleport crystal and defeating the boss. Later he was forced to join the Knight of Blood Oath after the revelation of his unique skill and accepted the duel against Heathcliff for allowing Asuna to go with him and lost. Later, he realizes he is in love with Asuna, who returns his feelings, and they marry in-game. Later, Kirito exposed Heathcliff as Kayaba after
17969-418: The plans of Emperor Vector when he arrived. When Vixur attempted to attack Emperor Vecta, he was stabbed with a poisoned needle used by Fu Za. As he died, Vixur unleashed the recollection ability of his sword which created a tornado that ravaged the fluclights of anything it came in contact with. Lipia Zancale is an 11th-ranked dark knight in the Dark Territory and Vixur Ul Shasta's subordinate who she loved. As
18120-407: The practice of using a part of a kanji character) emerged via a parallel path: monastery students simplified man'yōgana to a single constituent element. Thus the two other writing systems, hiragana and katakana , referred to collectively as kana , are descended from kanji. In contrast with kana ( 仮名 , literally "borrowed name", in reference to the character being "borrowed" as
18271-594: The presence or absence of the -shii ending ( okurigana ). A common example of a verb with jukujikun is 流行る ( haya-ru , “to spread, to be in vogue”), corresponding to on'yomi 流行 ( ryūkō ). A sample jukujikun deverbal (noun derived from a verb form) is 強請 ( yusuri , “extortion”), from 強請る ( yusu-ru , “to extort”), spelling from 強請 ( kyōsei , “extortion”). Note that there are also compound verbs and, less commonly, compound adjectives, and while these may have multiple kanji without intervening characters, they are read using
18422-399: The raid, Gabriel uses the account of Emperor Vecta ( ベクタ , Bekuta ) , a dark god who reigns over the Dark Territory, to rally the Dark Territory's peoples to wage war on the Human Empire. After being forced to use his Subtilizer account and continue fighting, Gabriel is killed when Kirito overloads his fluctlight. Gabriel's soul returns to the real world and discovers that his physical body
18573-402: The readings contradict the kanji), or clarification if the referent may not be obvious. Jukujikun are when the standard kanji for a word are related to the meaning, but not the sound. The word is pronounced as a whole, not corresponding to sounds of individual kanji. For example, 今朝 ("this morning") is jukujikun . This word is not read as *ima'asa , the expected kun'yomi of
18724-401: 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. Suguha, also known as Sugu; she is in actuality Kazuto's cousin, as her mother had been raising her sister's child from a young age after his parents died from an accident, though neither Suguha nor Kazuto knew about this until later. She is
18875-461: The real-life death of the user. Later, it is discovered that he has been posing as Heathcliff, the leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath. Although he has the admin authority 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. His only goal in life was to make Aincrad
19026-475: The rest are kun ), or 12 if related verbs are counted as distinct. The on'yomi ( 音読み , [oɰ̃jomi] , lit. "sound(-based) reading") , the Sino-Japanese reading, is the modern descendant of the Japanese approximation of the base Chinese pronunciation of the character at the time it was introduced. It was often previously referred to as translation reading , as it was recreated readings of
19177-501: The rest of Subtilizier's minions collect their dead comrades before leaving and setting up the Ocean Turtle to explode. However, Akihiko Kayaba defuses the explosive and Critter also finds out that his comrades never found Vassago's body. Gabriel Miller is the primary antagonist of the second half of the Alicization Arc, the chief tactical officer of «Glowgen Defense Systems» and the son of the company's founding president. He developed
19328-413: The series' second villain, Oberon, writing "How do you make a better villain than a man who trapped 10,000 people in a death game for no adequately explained reason? Easy. You just show how good that guy was by comparison to the new villain." An overarching antagonist and Kirito's nemesis, Vassago is a mercenary known by his username PoH, which is short for "Prince of Hell". He is the illegitimate child of
19479-546: The seventh volume and the Progressive series (which tells the entire Aincrad Arc through her perspective), Asuna – who is 17 (Born: 30 Sept 2007) – is a friend and later to be girlfriend and the in-game wife of Kirito in Sword Art Online and Alfheim Online. The 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
19630-431: The show be better overall if Sugou was a more subtle villain who didn't take every opportunity to be an absolute douche? Maybe, but keep in mind, as a show about online interactions, demonstrating The Greater Internet Dickwad Theory is definitely in SAO's purview. He may not be a great character who's going to make anyone's "Top Villains We Hate to Love and Love to Hate" list, but he's a villain that makes perfect sense within
19781-416: The spin-off manga series Sword Art Online: Girls' Ops , where they form a team with Kirito away on a study program and Asuna tied up in family affairs. Leafa has received generally positive critical reception. Karen Mead of Japanator.com critiqued Suguha's character as "a fairly nuanced, sympathetic portrayal of someone falling in love with a blood relation due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, which
19932-575: The standard readings samu or kan , and instead of the usual spelling for fuyu of 冬 . Another example is using 煙草 (lit. "smoke grass") with the reading tabako ("tobacco") rather than the otherwise-expected readings of *kemuri-gusa or *ensō . Some of these, such as for tabako , have become lexicalized , but in many cases this kind of use is typically non-standard and employed in specific contexts by individual writers. Aided with furigana , gikun could be used to convey complex literary or poetic effect (especially if
20083-444: The storyline, and "while Suguha was a veritable co-lead for one story arc, she has now been relegated to that role in the franchise, too". Rebecca Silverman, also of Anime News Network, referred to Leafa as a "somewhat more interesting character" than Kirito, despite her crush on him being "annoying". She referred to her having "promise as a character" as one of the positive aspects of the third Fairy Dance light novel. Silverman, in
20234-502: The struggle with PoH in the Alicization – War of Underworld-arc, Eugeo's spirit helps to restore a catatonic Kirito to full health, and continues to support him in his battles against PoH and Gabriel Miller. Eugeo was awarded sixth in a Dengeki Bunko character poll for their light novels. The mysterious girl who was Kirito's "childhood friend", along with Eugeo, in Underworld. She is captured and supposedly taken away to be executed by
20385-442: The time delayed message Sachi left for him on Christmas Eve. This event kept Kirito from joining another guild. Kirito befriended a girl named Silica and helped her revive her pet Pina. Later, Kirito met a blacksmith named Lisbeth, who forged a new sword for Kirito after he unlocked a unique skill: Dual Blades, although he kept it hidden to avoid attention. However, he was forced to reveal it during 74th Floor Boss fight in order to save
20536-495: The two finally meet Alice, but Kirito and Alice are separated from Eugeo. After making his way to Quinella, Kirito is forced to fight Eugeo who had been corrupted to becoming an Integrity Knight. Kirito defeats him and returns him to his senses. However after a long battle with Quinella, Eugeo dies in Kirito's arms. Quinella attempts to escape to the real world by summoning a console that can contact Rath, but Chudelkin appeared and took her down with him, and they both perish. Kirito uses
20687-411: The usual kun'yomi . Examples include 面白い ( omo-shiro-i , “interesting”, literally “face + white”) and 狡賢い ( zuru-gashiko-i , “sly”, lit. “cunning, crafty + clever, smart”). Typographically, the furigana for jukujikun are often written so they are centered across the entire word, or for inflectional words over the entire root—corresponding to the reading being related to
20838-410: The virtual world of Aincrad in the VR game, Sword Art Online. He is accompanied by Asuna Yuuki, and they work together and support each other as the series progresses. As the main protagonist of Sword Art Online, Kirito was chosen to be one of the one thousand beta testers for the closed beta of Sword Art Online, the first ever Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG) for
20989-605: The word for telephone , 電話 denwa in Japanese, was derived from the Chinese words for "electric" and "conversation." It was then calqued as diànhuà in Mandarin Chinese, điện thoại in Vietnamese and 전화 jeonhwa in Korean. Chinese characters first came to Japan on official seals, letters, swords, coins, mirrors, and other decorative items imported from China . The earliest known instance of such an import
21140-721: The word was borrowed before the Meiji period . Words whose kanji are jukujikun are often usually written as hiragana (if native), or katakana (if borrowed); some old borrowed words are also written as hiragana , especially Portuguese loanwords such as かるた ( karuta ) from Portuguese " carta " (English “card”) or てんぷら ( tempura ) from Portuguese " tempora " (English “times, season”), as well as たばこ ( tabako ). Sometimes, jukujikun can even have more kanji than there are syllables, examples being kera ( 啄木鳥 , “woodpecker”), gumi ( 胡頽子 , “silver berry, oleaster”), and Hozumi ( 八月朔日 ,
21291-500: The world tree. 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 . However, when Kirito's true identity is revealed, she is heartbroken and the two of them have an awkward exchange in the real world where Sugu reveals her feelings for him. Not knowing how to respond or comfort her, Kazuto tells her he will be waiting for her in game. When they meet up they engage in
21442-522: Was also Kirito's "childhood friend" along with Alice in Underworld. He has his memories of Kirito purged, along with the rest of his fellow villagers, but recovers them later on, to a certain degree. He has a strong desire to find Alice after she was taken away by the Axiom Church, and in order to do so, Kirito teaches him his "Aincrad-style" sword skills, taking the "Blue Rose Sword" as his primary weapon. Eugeo became Kirito's best friend and most loyal companion throughout his time in Underworld. Later, he breaks
21593-450: Was an Imp in ALO, she started dueling anyone promising an 11-hit Original Sword Skill (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 Yuuki asks her to help defeating the 27th Floor boss with her guild the "Sleeping Knights" in desire to etch all their names on the Monument of Swordsmen to make
21744-500: Was confronted by Sugou going by Oberon, binding them both with gravity magic. Oberon then stabbed Kirito with his sword, and then critically damaging Kirito by increasing Kirito's pain limit and impaling him. When the consciousness of Akihiko Kayaba reminded Kirito how he was defeated by Kirito's determination and give him his admin ID and password and remove Sugou's GM status, Kirito then blinds and dismembers him after setting Sugou's pain limit to
21895-475: Was expanded to 2,136 in 2010. Some of the new characters were previously jinmeiyō kanji; some are used to write prefecture names: 阪 , 熊 , 奈 , 岡 , 鹿 , 梨 , 阜 , 埼 , 茨 , 栃 and 媛 . As of September 25, 2017, the jinmeiyō kanji ( 人名用漢字 , kanji for use in personal names) consists of 863 characters. Kanji on this list are mostly used in people's names and some are traditional variants of jōyō kanji. There were only 92 kanji in
22046-462: Was killed by the monster while attempting to obtain the Last Attack bonus. Because of this, the hatred for beta testers resurfaced and threatened to go out of control. Kirito decided to end the tension by claiming that a majority of beta testers were inefficient and incapable players, while only a select few of the beta testers like himself resulted the creation of the category Beater and Kirito remained
22197-634: Was one last person in the Death Gun group: Atsushi Kanomoto, otherwise known as Johnny Black, and the last known surviving member of Laughing Coffin. Later, Kazuto agrees to work with the company Rath in testing out their new full-dive system, the Soul Translator. The STL reads the Fluctlights in the human brain and transports them to a highly advanced AI world, the Underworld. In the Underworld, Kirito has no memories of reality while he dives, and cannot take any memories with him when he exits. After explaining
22348-526: Was reduced, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established. Some characters were given simplified glyphs , called shinjitai ( 新字体 ) . Many variant forms of characters and obscure alternatives for common characters were officially discouraged. These are simply guidelines, so many characters outside these standards are still widely known and commonly used; these are known as hyōgaiji ( 表外字 ) . The kyōiku kanji ( 教育漢字 , lit. "education kanji") are
22499-441: Was revealed to be a Type 54 pistol , the same weapon she had used in the post office shooting. She is rescued by Kirito and the two escape, though she is afraid to attack Death Gun. With his help, Sinon overcomes her fear and the two defeat Death Gun. Afterwards, the two end the tournament as co-winners after Sinon kills them both with a «Gift Grenade». Upon exiting GGO , Shino is visited by Kyōji, who congratulates her on winning
22650-542: Was the King of Na gold seal given by Emperor Guangwu of Han to a Wa emissary in 57 AD. Chinese coins as well as inkstones from the first century AD have also been found in Yayoi period archaeological sites. However, the Japanese people of that era probably had little to no comprehension of the script, and they would remain relatively illiterate until the fifth century AD, when writing in Japan became more widespread. According to
22801-618: Was understood, and in May 1923, the Japanese government announced 1,962 kanji characters for regular use. In 1940, the Japanese Army decided on the "Table of Restricted Kanji for Weapons Names" ( 兵器名称用制限漢字表 , heiki meishō yō seigen kanji hyō ) which limited the number of kanji that could be used for weapons names to 1,235. In 1942, the National Language Council announced the "Standard Kanji Table" ( 標準漢字表 , hyōjun kanji-hyō ) with
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