CATDOLL: "Sword Art Online" author: The story is interesting, authenticity is not important

After announcing the production of a theatrical version, "Sword Art Online" has once again entered the public eye. In a recent interview, the author Kawahara Reki said that he would sacrifice authenticity for the sake of the story's fun.

This interview is from the joint project of the mobile game ".hack" and "Sword Art Online". Through this special cooperation, the authors and producers of the two works also conducted special interviews. In this interview, Kawahara Reki, the author of "Sword Art Online", mentioned some of his bitterness when creating the work, and said, "In order to make the work more interesting, I will abandon the authenticity of some game settings."

Cross-border cooperation promotional image of ".hack" and "Sword Art Online"

This interview was published on the website "Dengeki APP", and mainly talked about the conversation between ".hack" series producer Matsuyama Hiroshi and "Sword Art Online" author Kawahara Reki. The following is the content of the conversation.

Matsuyama: Of course, I have been aware of Sword Art Online over the past 10 years. Basically, the two works appeared at about the same time.

Kawahara: Both works were made around 2002.

Matsuyama: So I thought that whether it was ".hack" or "Sword Art Online", it would be said to be "plagiarism of another work", like ".hack" copied "Sword Art Online", or "Sword Art Online" copied ".hack" and so on... (laughs)

Kawahara: I think so too. (laughs)

Host: So the next question is, what is the most important part when you construct the world view of your work?

Kawahara: Sword Art Online is a work based on an online game, and it has many worldview settings, but I often forget that it is a novel and add some core elements. Although hardcore fans may like it, it may also exclude many readers.

After all, this work is a creative story. If I have to choose between the fun of the story itself and the authenticity, I will choose the former without hesitation. Sometimes in order to make the story more interesting, some of the authenticity of the game must be abandoned, but this seems to be not recognized by some core game players...

Interview scene

Matsuyama: Unwelcome?

Kawahara: Really. Although I know myself that the game system settings are too easy to complain about. However, I am not writing an online game called "Sword Art Online", but a novel in which the protagonist adventures in the online game world, so I often take it as a warning.

I believe that many people will complain about some of the settings in "Sword Art Online" when watching it. In fact, as Kawahara said, the focus of this work is not "the game" but "the people who play the game", so it seems understandable that the system architecture has deviations?