The following item was originally published on 7 September 2012 on Helen McCarthy: A Face Made for Radio and is republished here with the kind permission of the author. Yuko Omori doesn’t want kimono to die out. The fashion stylist and TV costume designer has launched her own kimono line, Double Maison, to encourage young Japanese women to put their own spin on...

What would you do if you suddenly discovered that your favorite video game – normally an avenue for escapism and cathartic release – had real-world consequences for each of your actions? What if it’s your own life on the line, and if you die in-game, your real life is forfeit? That’s the kind of dilemma that the players of Sword Art Online, a new Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online RPG, face inside this summer’s anime of the same name.