It was announced during the Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Aria of a Starless Night stage event at AnimeJapan 2021, that the film is scheduled to released in Japanese theaters this upcoming fall. The stage event also revealed a new visual key and promotional video for the film. During the stage event, it was announced there will be a new character named Mito, and she will be voiced by Inori Minase.
The production staff consists of:
- Head Director: Ayako Kawano
- Character Designer: Kento Toya
- Key Animator: Yasuyuki Kai
- Music: Yuki Kajiura
- Head Animation Studio: A-1 Pictures
The character cast consists of:
- Reki Kawahara as Asuna Yuuki
- Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Kazuto “Kirito” Kirigaya
- Inori Minase as Mito
Here is the new Sword Art Online the Movie Progressive Aria of the Night PV:
Sword Art Online the Movie – Progressive – Aria of a Starless Night new visual:
Reki Kawahara’s sixth volume, Sword Art Online: Progressive retells the original series of Sword Art Online and was first launched in 2012. It features Kirito and Asuna clearing each floor during the Aincrad arc. The film will be adapting the first chapter of the Sword Art Online: Progressive light novel. Yen Press is publishing Sword Art Online: Progressive and the two manga adaptation of the light novel in English. The Sword Art Online light novel series has a complied of twenty-five volumes of the main story, and seven volumes for the Sword Art Online Progressive light novel series. The Sword Art Online franchise has received four animation seasons, Sword Art Online in 2012, Sword Art Online II in 2014, Sword Art Online Alicization in 2018, and Sword Art Online Alicization: War of Underworld in 2019. A spin-off series, Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online in 2018, and a movie, Sword Art Online Ordinal Scale in 2017.
Yen Press describes the first volume of the series as:
There’s no way to beat this game. The only difference is when and where you die…’One month has passed since Akihiko Kayaba’s deadly game began, and the body count continues to rise. Two thousand players are already dead. Kirito and Asuna are two very different people, but they both desire to fight alone. Nonetheless, they find themselves drawn together to face challenges from both within and without. Given that the entire virtual world they now live in has been created as a deathtrap, the surviving players of Sword Art Online are starting to get desperate, and desperation makes them dangerous to loners like Kirito and Asuna. As it becomes clear that solitude equals suicide, will the two be able to overcome their differences to find the strength to believe in each other, and in so doing survive?
Sword Art Online: Progressive is a new version of the Sword Art Online tale that starts at the beginning of Kirito and Asuna’s epic adventure — on the very first level of the deadly world of Aincrad!
Source: Sword Art Online the Movie – Progressive – Aria of a Starless Night stage event live stream
Images are screenshots from the livestream
