Reki
Kawahara
Reki Kawahara
Reki Kawahara was born in 1974 in the Gunma Prefecture. Kawahara has two younger sisters, one 2 years younger, another 4 years younger. During his college years, Reki Kawahara was in the Manga Studies Club. He drew manga and illustrations during his time there. Kawahara would often head to the arcade with his fellow members to play fighting games. He also started playing online games in 1998, starting with Ultima Online. Kawahara also playedRagnarok Online, his most played game (although he stated World of Warcraft during Sakura-Con 2013), and Phantasy Star Online. Kawahara tried to draw manga but the work became too tedious as manga required too many things to do before getting his idea on paper. He claimed that he enjoyed coming up with stories instead of dealing with the fiasco in its entirety. Therefore, he started to take up writing.
In Fall of 2001, Kawahara decided to apply for the 9th Dengeki Game Novel Grand Prix (Dengeki Game Shousetsu Taishou). He had no prior writing experience and only read other works. Kawahara finished Sword Art Online (SAO) in 2002, but he was turned down because it exceeded the page limit by 120 pages. Dengeki Bunko strictly forbids bending its rules. Kawahara didn't have the skills or will to trim it down, so he gave up at that point.
However, because of his lingering attachment to his work, Kawahara decided to post it up on his own website. “Kunori Fumio” is the pen name that Kawahara used when he wrote the web novel Sword Art Online. His work was well received by his viewers which became his motivation to write further including a sequel. Sword Art Online inspiration came from online games. He felt it would be more natural to write about net games.
In 2008, Kawahara decided to write again for the Dengeki Light Novel Award with KyouzetsuKasoku Burst Linker. He reapplied because he was inspired by all the works he read from Media Works Inc., such as Tokyo Shadow and Those who Hunt Elves. Although he was required to trim his work again, he was able to meet Dengeki Bunko's requirements .Kawahara was successful in winning the magazine's Top Prize, the award goes from Top Prize, Gold, Sliver, and then Bronze, and debuted as a writer at the age of 34.
The title was changed to Accel World because people commented the title sounded stupid and lame. The concept for “Accel World” came from fighting games. He thought it would be neat if people could turn the world into a fighting game just by thinking while in the middle of the street. However, it would be too dangerous to be spacing out in the real world, so he made the brain burst setting.
