Thread:Athletiger/@comment-99.59.174.130-20180413020718/@comment-28102832-20180413141214

If you want maximum entertainment, then start from Volume 1 of the main series. You has a lot more system description and a lot of inner monologue what cut out from the anime or changed with action/facial expressions. You can understand the characters more, more importantly Kirito with his struggles and you can have some extra content too (full Murder Case story, half of it is cut out from the anime, a "preview" for Tonky and the Calibur quest in the Fairy Dance arc and an Aincrad story for the first day what's not adapted in the anime.) Then you can freely start from Volume 9 with Alicization with knowing everything.

Edit. I can recommend reading from the beginning too because Alicization has a main point on sword skills in the first part, but the anime not really described the skills and they working that much.