Quick Facts
Biography
Reki Kawahara (川原 礫, Kawahara Reki, born August 17, 1974) is a Japanese light novel author. He is best known as the creator of Sword Art Online and Accel World, both of which have been adapted into anime. He has also written The Isolator.
Career
Kawahara wrote the first volume of Sword Art Online in 2001 as a competition entry for the 2002 ASCII Media Works Dengeki Game Novel Prize (電撃ゲーム小説大賞, Dengeki Game Shōsetsu Taishō, now Dengeki Novel Prize), but refrained from submitting it as he had exceeded the page limit; he instead published it as a web novel under the pen name Fumio Kunori (九里史生, Kunori Fumio). Over time, he added three further main arcs and several short stories, which like the first arc Aincrad, were later adapted into the light novels.
Kawahara entered the first Accel World novel into ASCII Media Works' 15th Dengeki Novel Prize in 2008 and the novel won the Grand Prize. The first novel was published by ASCII Media Works on February 10, 2009 under their Dengeki Bunko imprint. As of September 7, 2018, 23 volumes have been published. An anime series debuted in April 2012. After gaining fame from the Dengeki award, Kawahara republished Sword Art Online in print. 21 volumes have been published as of December 2018, as well as six volumes of Sword Art Online: Progressive. An anime series premiered in July 2012, and was followed by a for-TV movie Sword Art Online Extra Edition on December 31, 2013 a second anime series, Sword Art Online II, in July 2014, a theatrical film adaptation, Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale, in February 2017, and the first of two seasons for the third anime series, Sword Art Online: Alicization, in October 2018.
The Isolator was serialized online starting in 2004,and began publishing in print in June 2014. Five light novels and four manga have been written.
Works
Light Novel
- Accel World (2009)
- Sword Art Online (2009)
- Sword Art Online: Progressive (2012)
- The Isolator (2014)
- Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online (2014) - Supervision
Anime
- Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online (2018) - Supervision
Film
- Accel World: Infinite Burst (2016) - Script
- Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale (2017) - Screenplay
