The official website for Sword Art Online reopened on the 10th of February and it contains images of the world and characters plus the official Twitter feed.



Synopsis

Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya is a programmer who enters a virtual-reality, massively multi-player online RPG (VRMMORPG) named "Sword Art Online." This isn’t World of Warcraft or Guild Wars because there is no escape from this world unless the player clears the game, or dies because when it’s "game over" online it means the death of the player in reality. Without knowing the truth about the game’s rules, thousands logged in and entered this deadly game. Kirito accepts the rules and aims to clear the game with a female rapier expert named Asuna.

Sword Art Online is based on a light novel series by Reki Kawahara (creator of Accel World), with illustrations by BUNBUN. So far there are eight novels in the series which began back in 2009 but this is the first anime adaptation.VA's have already been assigned roles for the anime with Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Hanasaku Iroha) taking the lead as Kazuto, Haruka Tomatsu (Nagi in Kannagi) voicing Asuna. 

A-1 (Blue Exorcist, Fairy Tail, Sora no Woto) is animating with Tomohiko Itou (Death Note) directing, Shingo Adachi adapting BUNBUN’s character design for the anime. For a taste of the original character designs check out the video below.

The anime will premiere in Japan in July. To keep track of it visit the site.


Source