Quote from Conor;951345:
is the manga like 100x times better than the show or anything? i've watched ten episodes and though the first like two or three episodes were good, the rest of them have been iffy at best.
Though it's obvious that the two protags were gonna be together, I really don't see how it could escalate so quickly in episode 10 to the point where they've agreed to marry each other unless they've left out a lot of story or this arc ends up as an example of how online-game relationships can go wrong. I was told that the plot would have actually started by now, but it's still the whole "let's try to beat the game so we can escape it" ordeal, which would be fine if they didn't make two years fly by in the course of two episodes.
the manga isn't far.. it's the Light Novel that is really far.
And when people mean by the main plot has began, it mean that in the novel, once the finish introducing the events that happened in episode 1, the light novel quickly jump to episode 8.. Also it might seem rushed in the anime but in the actually story, if you follow it in chronological order. The begining of episode 5 is the trigger that made Asuna interested in Kirito in the first place. On Floor 56, the mini boss blocking the path to the tower. Kirito was against Asuna's idea to let the boss enter the village and kill NPC. The anime only showed that but in the actuall story, Asuna tried to duel Kirito to make him obey. Sadly for her, she lost and her feelings for him started to be a little bit influhenced.
It take about 10 days for each floor to be cleared (except for the first floor which took 1 month..) Asuna officially got togeter with Kirito a few days after floor 74 was cleared. (74 - 55) X 10 = 190 days. About 6 months and 1/3 of one. That's how long it took Asuna from the moment she started having feelings for him and the moment they got togeter.
Volume 1 of the Light Novel is the main plot of the SAO arc. It begin and end in Volume 1.
Volume 2 is short stories that happened inside the SAO plot, like episode 4 and episode 7 as well as episode 3 and VERY quite probsbly Episode 11 (tomorow)
Volume 3 and 4 are called Fairy Dance which are the entire(almost) ALO arc that happen after Volume 1.
Volume 5 and 6 are called Phantom Bullet which is the entire GGO arc that happened after Volume 4
Volume 7 is the story that happened after Volume 6. Technicly it happen within both RL and ALO just as much
Volume 8 is another Short stories volume that contain the story of episode 5 and 6 (without the slight begining of episode 5), another story that happened within the ALO arc and another short story that was not presented in the Anime, the First Day of SAO after Kirito ran out of the city at the end of the Death Game declaration.<
Volume 9 and 10 are the UN arc but currently volume 10 isn't fully translated.
Also the autor of the story released more short stories on the internet.
One of them was used to make episode 2 of the anime.