Kirito

"I will survive in this world!"

- Kirito

Kazuto Kirigaya, born Kazuto Narusaka and also known by his avatar name Kirito, is the main protagonist of the Sword Art Online light novel, anime and Manga franchise. His avatar name, Kirito, was taken from his real name Kazuto Kirigaya; "Kiri--" from Kirigaya and "to" from Kazuto. He was one of the 1,000 beta testers for the Closed Beta of Sword Art Online, the first ever VRMMORPG for the NerveGear Head Gear system.

He is voiced by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka in the orignal Japanese version and Bryce Papenbrook in the English dub, the latter whom voiced Cat Noir, Rin Okumura, Eren Yeager, Shirou Emiya, Masaomi Kida, Meliodas, Zidane Tribal, Rokuro Enmado and Kagura Karatachi.

Real World/Sword Art Online/Project Alicization Avatar
During the beginning of the game and during the beta-testing phase, Kirito's avatar had the appearance of a very handsome protagonist from some fantasy animation, looking older than he truly was. In the light novel, it was stated that he (and probably Klein, too) had set his in-game height equal to that of his height in the real world to prevent the extra height from slowing down his movements. In the full version of the game, a few moments after Akihiko Kayaba informed the players that they were given a gift from him, which turned out to be a Hand Mirror, all player avatars were changed to reflect their real life appearances. After this change, Kirito's SAO avatar had slightly long black hair and black eyes. His delicate face showed no trace of masculinity, causing most people to easily mistake him for a girl.

After the initial stages, he becomes better known in SAO as the Black Swordsman due to his tendency to wear black clothing. His clothes in Sword Art Online consisted of black pants with a black belt that had a large silver buckle, a black V-necked shirt that was worn underneath a long black trench coat with light gray lining going down the sleeves and black boots with silver plates to protect his shins. He has a silver plate worn on his coat, which was on his left side, and a pair of black fingerless gloves. He wears a strap, that goes over his right shoulder and under it to wrap around his left side, that holds at first just his Elucidator and then his Dark Repulser as well. He uses two swords after his unique sword skill budded Dual Blades is revealed, the black "Elucidator" and the white "Dark Repulser". He later donned the red and white uniform of the Knights of the Blood after being defeated by its leader Heathcliff in a public duel and being forced to join his guild. In the real world he has a tendency to gravitate towards dark colored clothes.

In the beginning of Project Alicization, he wore a hand-sewn pale blue short sleeved shirt with a V-shaped cut on the chest which was tied with a light brown cord along with trousers and hand-sewn leather shoes. Two years later, after he became a valet in the Master Sword Academy, he wears the standard gray uniform, like all first years and non-elite swordsmen do. In the second year of the academy, after he becomes one of the 12 elite swordsmen in the academy and is allowed to choose a color for his uniform, he wears a pitch black uniform.

ALfheim Online Avatar
Kirito's initial appearance was that of a default "Spriggan", which he chose because of the race's black-themed equipment. Instead of the normal black forelocks hanging from his head, his black hair stood in natural spikes. His large eyes appeared mischievous, and he had pointy ears and dark grey-ish blue wings. He is equipped with a large broadsword, intended for larger players, like "Imps". He will occasionally dual wield by using his experience from his past in SAO.

After converting his avatar back from his brief stint in Gun Gale Online, he changed his previous spiky hair style into his old SAO style due to Yui's request. The reason for the request was that it was hard for her to sit on the spiky hair. His mischievous black eyes remain the same though. He also received a new coat and switched his previous broadsword with a new long sword.

In late December, 2025, he obtains the "Holy Sword Excaliber", and uses it as his second weapon when dual wielding, but only in extreme cases, due to the fact he promised to himself not to use the sword for personal gain.

Gun Gale Online Avatar
Kirito's avatar in GGO is the rare "M9000" type, which is speculated to be the result of an extremely rare occurrence of the system misinterpreting the player's brain waves (the system identifies the gender of the player via their brainwaves, but, on rare occasions, due to some impulse, it chooses the appearance of the opposite gender). It is an avatar that many male players dream of having, due to its female appearance. He retains his black hair, which now flows down to his shoulders. He has a pale skin and crimson lips, and shining black eyes, fringed by long eyelashes. If one did not know better, it would be easy to confuse him with a female. This often causes great confusion to people, such as Sinon, who originally assumed that he was a female player until he undressed within the game to confirm he was a boy.

He is equipped with a 5.7mm FN Five Seven handgun and Kagemitsu G4 photon sword.

Personality
Kirito is someone who is not good with words, as said by Klein, and can be quite direct. This is due to him not having many friends and closing others off during his life time, due to his love for computers. As such, he can come off as a rude person to others, such as Lisbeth and Sinon. Sometimes, he actually seems to enjoy angering and teasing people to some degree. Also, from time to time, Kirito can be quite overconfident thinking he can do things others can't.

He is almost always a calm and collected character, rarely showing any signs of distress. When Akihiko Kayaba appeared in SAO and announced that it has become a Death Game, Kirito showed only a slight reaction and was able to quickly accept the new conditions of the game, while most of the others panicked. He has shown different moods throughout the series; at times being rather cheerful, while being gloomy at other times. When in a battle, he becomes incredibly fierce and aggressive. His fierceness can go to the point where he loses control of himself and is even unable to recall what he had just done.

However, Kirito is actually a kind and caring person who is simply misunderstood. Despite the general population opinion towards Beta Testers in SAO, he refused to abandon another player in trouble even willing to risk his own life in doing so. This is only strengthened after the Black Cats of the Full Moon's demise which he blamed himself for. He also comforts others who are scared or down such as Silica after she lost Pina. He claims to help some female players in SAO because they remind him of his sister, who he feels to have forced into kendo and feels guilty for that. These kind of acts have earned him respect and affection from many girls. Kirito, unlike usual male heroes, is not very dense as he was able to tell that Lisbeth was going to confess to him, before Asuna interrupted.

Kirito is also a very emotional person and lets his emotions control him from time to time. The deaths of Sachi and Black Cats of the Full Moon had haunted him until his marriage with Asuna. Sachi's death in particular had a huge affect on his personality, and motives; making him very distant from others for a while. This worries his friends and allies as Kirito is someone who would let guilt ruin his life, if not comforted. Kirito temporarily loses his will to live when Asuna's character was killed by Heathcliff. He also tries to hide his abilities, not wanting unneeded attention and any more possible backlash from other.

A person with incredibly strong resolve, Kirito will do anything and everything in his power to accomplish something that's important to him, without any hesitation. When Asuna was being held in Alfheim, Kirito was bound and determined to set her free and, when Yui confirmed that she detected Asuna being at the top of Yggdrasil, he immediately tried to fly up to the tree, which had already been found to be an impossible task, and tried to fight his way to the top by himself.

After escaping SAO, Kirito attempts to repair his relationship with Suguha, his cousin. This shows Kirito is now attempting to make up for his past mistake of ignoring her, thus showing a new sense of maturity. Kirito, later in the series, is shown to be a calm and mature player who can be teasing as well.

Background
Born on October 7, 2008, Kirigaya Kazuto was adopted by his aunt and uncle a year after his birth when his biological parents died in a accident. Raised by his foster parents as a son, he originally trained with his cousin in the neighborhood kendo dojo under their grandfather's tutelage. Due to his aunt's influence as an editor for a computer systems magazine, Kazuto fell in love with computers and dropped kendo after two years of training causing Suguha to cover for him which he deeply regrets.

Kazuto has immense skill as a programmer, managing to build a computer from parts during elementary school, finding his erased records in the national registry at the age of ten, as well as managing to stop the SAO server from deleting Yui by converting her program into an object and storing her into his Nerve Gear as environmental data.

He currently lives at Kawagoe City in the Saitama prefecture with his family, adopted by his aunt and uncle after his parents died, though his uncle is more often than not absent. He was raised as their son with his cousin as his sister.

Trivia

 * Kirito rides a bike which has also had a multitude of passengers including Asuna, Suguha, and Shino.
 * Kirito is a two-time first place winner for the Top 10 Male Characters in the Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! awards (for 2012 and 2013). He placed third back in 2011.
 * So far, in the LN, Kirito was the most fortunate person in the 3 games. In SAO, because of being a beta tester and knew a lot of strategies in surviving, and barely survived the 74th floor boss; in ALO, retaining his skills in SAO; in GGO, getting the avatar «M9000» type that many male players dream of having one day.
 * Kirito likes calculating random things, like the volume of the cake that he is going to eat.
 * Kirito has a tendency of using a window instead of a door for to exit the room more quickly, usually when he senses danger or in awkward situations, though sometimes just for convenience.
 * Kirito's favorite skill is fishing. He even continues raising his fishing skill in ALO.
 * Kirito uses a self-made PC with a 24 GHz octa-core CPU.
 * If Kirito were to be an animal, he would be an orange wolf.
 * Kirito's favorite food is Teriyaki chicken burgers.
 * Kirito used to dislike spring onions until Asuna cooked it for him.
 * Kirito said he would've went after Asuna sooner, if she hadn't been cute, and also regretted not going out with her sooner, as he only ate good food in SAO after getting along with Asuna.
 * Kirito tried wielding three swords but gave up since, apparently, it felt like his teeth would fall out.
 * Kirito likes to pick on the cheeks of sleeping girls. He has already done that with Asuna, Yui and Suguha.
 * Kirito said that it seemed that everyone in SAO, including Asuna, viewed him as being older than he really was and, since he had never denied it, he had trouble admitting it to her at some point in the story.
 * Kirito suspected Asuna to be older than him but thought she probably viewed him older than he really was.
 * Kirito got an extremely average IQ score in the test he took during middle school.
 * Ever since the second year in SAO, Kirito has been known to sleep a lot. His sleep also seems to be an "AOE" skill, as people looking at him sleeping, with Pina and Yui sleeping on him, get sleepy themselves. He himself states that sleeping when you can is the 2nd most essential point of the Aincrad-style.
 * Kirito was an ideal person whom Kawahara wanted to become. Kawahara commented that he always hesitate to act, pointing out that it took him seven years to finally apply for the Dengeki Award.
 * Kirito's female avatar bares some similar facial expressions to Ryūko Matoi from Kill la Kill.
 * Though he was initially viewed by everyone as a beater and a cheater during the start of SAO, he would later appear as one of the primary members of the anime heroes, most notably along with his good friend Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan, who shares the same English voice actor as him.