Kawahara Reki

Kawahara Reki (川原礫) is the pen name of the author of Sword Art Online, Accel World, and The Isolator. While Sword Art Online was still a web novel, Kawahara Reki used the pen name Kunori Fumio, which he still uses to release his Material Editions.

Kawahara Reki created the first book from the wish to become one of the top players he could not be when playing MMO games, and created the character of Kirito by making him someone that does what he likes and what he wishes, without thinking about consequences, much contrary to him.

The second book was written to focus on mid-level players like him, and the third book was written as he wanted to write a scenario where two people from the same house were FullDiving without the other knowing.

Inspirations
Kawahara Reki has many inspirations growing up, from reading manga to online games. Reki Kawahara also stated in a Q&A sessionundefinedbetween the author Kawahara Reki and Heathcliff (Kayaba Akihiko) in 2005. "If I were to ask for you to mention one of the games you like best, which would it be?", Kawahara Reki stated the following "If you mean aside from SAO, it would be Wizardry, a game from long ago. I acquired a lot of inspiration from it". Rank Anime also wrote a story on what inspired him to write Sword Art Online.

Trivia

 * Kawahara Reki's hobby is cycling.
 * Kawahara Reki voiced Tin Writer in the Accel World TV anime adaptation, though Tin Writer was re-dubbed for the Blu-Ray release.