Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-17738315-20140721162154/@comment-6697950-20140721164938

Technically, she was only the female lead during the Aincrad arc. Both the Fairy Dance and Phantom Bullet arcs have a new female lead each, while most of the first half of Alicization doesn't even have a female lead to begin with. And actually, Asuna gets a whole side story (Mother's Rosario) for her character development.