It’s not uncommon nor unheard of for media companies in Japan to break out the big guns to celebrate the anniversaries of their most popular titles, and Sword Art Online is no exception. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the popular title’s launch (it first hit store shelves in April, 2009), Kadokawa is going to the bears!
As part of the anniversary celebration, Kadokawa is teaming up with the stuffed animal maker Steiff to release two limited-edition Sword Art Online teddy bears. Standing a solid 25–26cm tall, the two bears feature clothing worn by “The Black Swordsman” Kirito and lead heroine Asuna in her Knights of the Blood Oath uniform from the first season.
Pretty sweet looking, aren’t they? If you want to own these two treasures of anime memorabilia though, you will have to act fast and also cough up a pretty penny or three. Each teddy bear comes with a price tag of 45,000 yen (about $420 USD) and pre-orders are being limited to an undisclosed number. The official website says that pre-orders will close on July 31st, 2020, but if they reach their maximum number of orders early (which is likely to happen), they reserve the right to close orders at any point.
The Sword Art Online franchise has been running strong ever since it first debuted in print and its popularity only soared higher after getting an anime adaptation. The series has since produced two television seasons and a movie. The third television season premiered in October, 2018. The first half ran for two cours. The second half, which will also run for two cours, started airing in October, 2019. Unfortunately, the final cour of the third season (which was scheduled to air this month) has been delayed to July 2020, due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
The story of this season of Sword Art Online covers the Alicization arc, which ran from volume nine to volume eighteen of the light novel series. Crunchyroll describes the story of the third season as:
“Where…am I…?” Before he knows it, Kirito has made a full-dive into an epic, fantasy-like virtual world. With only a murky recollection of what happened right before he logged in, he starts to wander around, searching for clues. He comes upon an enormous, pitch dark tree (the Gigas Cedar), where he encounters a boy. “My name is Eugeo. Nice to meet you, Kirito.” Although he is supposedly a resident of the virtual world — an NPC — the boy shows the same array of emotions as any human being. As Kirito bonds with Eugeo, he continues to search for a way to log out of this world. Meanwhile, he remembers a certain memory deep down within him. He remembers racing through the mountains with Eugeo as a child… A memory that he should not have in the first place… And in this memory, he sees someone other than Eugeo, a young blond girl. Her name is Alice. And it is a name that must never be forgotten…
Source: Crunchyroll News
