Asuna (Sword Art Online)

"I'd rather stay myself until the very end than sit and rot away at an inn, back in the first town. Even if I get killed by a monster, I don't want to lose to this game... to this world... no matter what."

- Asuna

Asuna is a heroine and the partner of Kirito in the Sword Art Online series. She is the sub-leader of the "Knights of the Blood" guild in Sword Art Online. Her real name is Asuna Yuuki, and she is the daughter of the former CEO of RECTO Progress Inc who decided to retire shortly after she was freed from the virtual world.

She is voiced by Haruka Tomatsu in the original Japanese version and Cherami Leigh in the English version of the anime series who is also notable for the voice of Lucy Heartfilia of Fairy Tail.

Reality/Sword Art Online Avatar
She has long orange-brownish chestnut hair and hazel eyes. In the early levels of SAO, she wears a dark red leather tunic, a lightweight copper breastplate and leather pants with boots up to the knees as well as a hooded cape. After joining the "Knights of the Blood", she wears a red and white uniform that all KoB members wear and wields a rapier made by Lisbeth, called the "Lambent Light".

ALfheim Online Avatar
Her original avatar in ALfheim, was as Fairy Queen, Titania. She wore a white outfit, with a white long skirt, tube top showing her belly, along with a red ribbon that goes around the top part of her top that comes together to make a bow. She goes barefoot, and wears a white strip around her ankles.

After being rescued by Kirito and returning to the game, she creates a new avatar, which is an Undine. She has light blue hair with an appearance that otherwise slightly differs from her SAO avatar. Her class is a healer, later known as «Berserk Healer» due to the fact that she enjoys fighting in the front line with her rapier occasionally, despite her role as a healer. Her Undine avatar is from her main account that was transferred from SAO. She also made a new account and trained a new character from scratch: the Sylph "Erika". The reason she created a new character was very simple: Sometimes she wanted to change her appearance aswell. Erika specialized in melee and had most of its ability points devoted to dagger skills, so it was more suited for duels, Asuna  was also half healer.

Personality
Asuna originally didn't care about dying in the game, before meeting Kirito. That meeting drastically changed Asuna's personality and outlook on life. She soon takes most things Kirito says to heart and looks to him for help, using him as somewhat of a lifeline. She acts as a tsundere towards him for most of Volume 1, even when married.

Asuna is a kind and helpful young woman, who is similar to Kirito, can not abandon another person in trouble even at the risk of her own life. She takes the game very seriously and is very focused on clearing it, before Kirito tells her to enjoy SAO some. Asuna is also somewhat proud and is not afraid to get physical with those that challenge her authority or skills. She even challenged Kirito to a duel after an argument over how to handle a Floor Boss. She isn't afraid to act out on her own and will take matters in her own hands from time to time when its needed.

Asuna, once again similar to Kirito, is someone who can be controlled by her emotions many times. This is best shown in moments with Kirito where she jumped in front of an attack meant for him by Heathcliff and appeared to be killed. She also can't handle the deaths of others well and will lose control, attacking The Gleam Eyes after seeing the Liberation Army players get slaughtered without much if any thinking a head.

In ALO, after being saved by Kirito, Asuna's personality hasn't changed much except she's not as proud as she was in SAO. Her personality begins to develop further after meeting Yuuki. Seeing how, despite knowing she will die, Yui can still move forward, Asuna takes after her and resolves after her new friend's death to keep moving forward. She is also seems either dense to the fact that other girls having feelings for Kirito, or she knows that Kirito is only in love with her, and so it doesn't bother her.

Trivia

 * Asuna placed second in the Top 10 Female Characters in the Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! 2012 and 2013 awards. She placed sixth back in 2011.
 * Asuna is one of the two known players using their real name as an In Game Name (IGN), the other being Yuuki.
 * Included in the first Blu-ray/DVD package, is a character song CD sang by Asuna (Tomatsu Haruka), titled "Independent Destiny". This is the 1st Character Song available for this series.
 * In the original "web-novel", Asuna did not hesitate to kill Kuradeel, when he began to beg for his life, and in-fact stabbed through him. This was changed in the Light Novel, Anime and Manga, so that it was Kirito who killed him, after Kuradeel attacks Asuna for her hesitation.
 * The Anime depicts Asuna and Kirito having met at the Meeting in «Tolbana», rather than in the dungeons, where Kirito informs Asuna about the meeting. Given this, the battle was on the very next day after the meeting, instead of 2 days after. This means that Kirito never showed Asuna his house, nor offered her the bath, as in the Light Novel.
 * In the anime, after the boss battle on the 1st floor, Asuna runs up to Kirito while he is still climbing the stairs, but in the LN, she actually caught up to him while he was sitting idly on the second floor.
 * The design of her KoB uniform in SAO was actually chosen by other members, who kept it a secret from her until it was ready. When she first saw her KoB uniform, she rejected it, saying that she couldn't wear something like it. But after Daizen told her with tears in his eyes that the price of even a single set of the uniform was colossal, she reluctantly agreed to wear it.
 * Asuna gets freaked out by astral-type monsters and had used numerous excuses to avoid clearing Labyrinths on horror-theme Aincrad floors.
 * Asuna is similar to Lucy Heartfilia. Both come from a rich family and have issues with one of their parents (Asuna with her mother and Lucy with her father), both are very kind in spite of their upbringings and both share the the same English voice actress (Cherami Leigh). Coincidentally, one of Asuna's online names in ALO is Titania, Queen of the Fairies, the nickname of Erza Scarlet.
 * Her English voice sounds almost identical to Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.