Sword Art Online

Trapped and fighting for their very lives in a Virtual Reality MMORPG, Aincrad Online, the story explores the mishaps and adventures of the greatest one handed swordsman of the VR world, Kirito. Together with his friends, the solo swordsman strives to finish the game, which in turn will release all the minds trapped into Aincrad. (from Anime News Network)

A very interesting show so far. I've only seen two episodes, and it's really good.

Episode Three was really really sad. So beautiful.

I watched the first episode. Tell me, is it as blatant of a rip-off of .hack Sign as it looks? "Help I'm in an mmo and can't log out! And it kills people in the real world!"

Actually, hack// never killed anyone with the game. The closest they ever got was Phyllo, but he was terminally ill with cancer (which was the ultimate cause of death). Well, I suppose you could count that one little AI girl they "deleted" in the novel... .hack// (all incarnations) really just put people into comas because Harold never really wanted to hurt anyone. (If someone was truly killed off in one of the few installments I didn't read/see/play, let me know)

Also, .hack// had quite a bit of magic and special skills (data drain, Guardian, etc.) while this one has nothing of that nature. It really is just normal people who've been screwed over. There isn't any AI "goddess" going around trying to save/smite anyone. Really, except for the appearance episode one, we haven't seen game maker again (yet).

You'd probably like this one more, Insectie. More fighting than .hack// with less subtext and tedious explanation. Fans seem to be comparing it more to Accel World with how the battle system works, since there's only physical combat.

The problem is, .hack// was so huge that it's difficult to make anything resembling an MMO anime without touching something the other hasn't touched upon at some point between it's three anime, three games, countless manga (I have five series, but there are more that I didn't bother with), one independent novel series (there were two novel series based upon games)...

Take it from a big .hack// fan: this is about as copied off of .hack// as any MMO is off of World of Warcraft. Even if you try to ignore the existence of the other, or even if you know nothing of it, it will always seem to be borrowing something.

Besides, others have done the "trapped in a game" storylines before SAO besides .hack//. Monster Rancher, an oldie but goody, for one. It wasn't an MMO, but the kid was trapped in a PS1 game. That one came before .hack// if I remember correctly, so it could be argued that .hack// ripped off of Monster Rancher. Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles had a brief video game arch. Virtua Quest was a video game with the nerve-control MMO and I'm pretty sure kids got kidnapped and kept in the game there, too, though I never could get very far. Tron was all about being trapped in a game, wasn't it? Mystical Detective Loki Ragnorak had an episode about being sucked into an arcade game. I could probably go on, but that's the extent of my knowledge. My brother probably knows more. ... I never realized how many of those there actually were... My brother and I really like these kinds of storylines...

... I seem to have typed waaaaay too much in this post.

No. Thank you for expounding; that's just what I needed to figure out if I should pick it up or not.

The trapped in a game plot has been done a ton, and you're right about how series that are part of big franchises with tons of story either have to do tons of explanation and put people to sleep or have them be lost and go to sleep.

I'm getting the second and 3rd episode now.

Anime club seemed to really enjoy it when we sampled it last week.

There were also many jokes about how one should read the fine print of the user licensing agreement afterward.

Just watched episode 4. Good episode. We meet another of the main characters, judging by the fact she appears in the OP.

...I miss Asuna. I want her to reappear. She has to be a big part, considering she's in half the OP and ED.

*just finished episode 5*
WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

(But yay, Asuna's back.)

She did have the creepy eye thing going on

Yup yup. Soon as I saw that, I went, "She knows something..."

*finishes EP 6*
Wow. I so did not see that coming. O.o SOOOO did not see that coming.

That was awesome!

Also, ghost or alive at the end there?

The twist was great, but they had a major cop-out too

Spoiler:

Alive I'm almost sure.

Also, I wonder how long before those two share an inventory if you know what I mean.

Well, dead characters are still on friends lists (saw that with Kirito), and the tracker you'd have to select the dead person. If you saw the person die, you wouldn't bother checking, now would you?

*snort* I don't know if they'd marry or not.

The intro shows her cooking for him at what looks like their own place.

That looked offline to me, since they were in normal clothing.

That's even more intimate.

You can always change what gear you're wearing.

But I don't think they have that modern of clothing in the game. We haven't seen anything like that, at least.

I've just finished watching the episode one, and I am downloading the first two.
It's a very good anime, and one of the fews that I have watched

^ It's a really good one. Shame they'll probably never import it to the States properly (if they do, I'll totally buy it).

Hopefully the ending will be good and not crap out like some of the others this season...

Of all of the ones this season I think there's a good chance SAO will over what else is airing.

Hey, I have seen the six episodes, between today and yesterday (loooot of free time) and I know that the episode 7 releases the Saturday. I have high expectations about this anime

Glad to know I picked a good one for you. If I spy any more that seem like you'd like them, I'll let you know.

We've finally met another of the characters from the opening. I like Lisbeth. If I got trapped in a game like SAO, I'd probably be doing what she's doing.