Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online is a light novel spin-off series of Sword Art Online written by Shigusawa Keiichi, with supervision by Kawahara Reki, and illustrated by Kuroboshi Kouhaku. An anime adaptation aired Spring 2018 and a second season was announced in July of 2023.
The series is about Kohiruimaki Karen, a young college student who has a complex about her height of 183 cm (~72 in). Enticed by the idea of being able to be someone else through a game avatar, Karen gets into Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Games (VRMMORPGs) wanting to be someone with a shorter stature. She starts with ALfheim Online (ALO) using the name LLENN, but finds that the randomly assigned game avatar is too tall. Advised by one of her friends, Karen transfers her account to various other games in the hopes of receiving a random avatar to her liking. She eventually settles on Gun Gale Online (GGO), as her randomly assigned avatar is a "chibi" with a height of 150 cm (~59 in). The story starts after Karen becomes friends with an online player named Pitohui, who gets Karen to participate in a team-based tournament called Squad Jam.
