AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading Sword Art Online 17: Alicization Awakening.

(Fair warning: I will be discussing lots of spoilers for this book!)

I’m sorry that it took so long since the last volume, Exploding. The subtitle for this book, Awakening, probably made you wonder, Kirito’s been asleep ever since Volume 15; is he finally going to wake up this time?! Well, I’m sorry, but for certain reasons I ended this book on an ambiguous “Is he awake…? Or still asleep…?” kind of scene, meant to carry us to the next volume. The truth is, I wanted to fit all of Chapter 21 (“Awakening”) into this volume, but that would unbalance things by making this volume very fat and the next one very thin, so I had to make the painful decision to do things this way. However, while I know it’s not exactly an even trade, the follow-up should be right after the next book in my publication schedule, so you won’t be left hanging for nearly as long. Just have a bit more patience…!

Now I’d like to talk about the content of the story for a bit. In this volume, Gabriel, Vassago, and Critter arrange an evil plot to bring a whole bunch of American, Korean, and Chinese VRMMO players into the Underworld to lead a fierce battle against the human realm’s army and the Japanese players. When I originally wrote this story on my website about a decade ago, I was hoping that it would give pause to the general air of rejection and expulsion of foreign players from online games that was happening in Japan at that time. But because of my lack of writing ability, it ended up breeding more hostility instead, which was something I long felt ashamed of.

When it came time to expand and edit the story for the collected light novel publication, I considered changing this part of the plot entirely, but it felt like that would just be fleeing from my original choice…so in the end, I left the basic structure unchanged. In the Progressive series, you’ve seen the “agitating PKer” known as Vassago, or PoH, begin to leave his malicious mark. Wait until next volume to find out how Kirito brings an end to that malice.

This is the fifteenth year since the SAO series was born on a tiny little corner of the Internet, and I feel the satisfaction of realizing how long it’s been. But there are also video games, a theatrical movie, and other projects in the works that will continue expanding the SAO world. I hope that if you’re still interested, you’ll come check it all out. Lastly, to my illustrator, abec, for the beautiful and bold depictions of Leafa, Sinon, and the others, and to my editor tackling a new challenge, Miki, thank you for making this happen!

Reki Kawahara—March 2016