Sword Art Online: Progressive – Scherzo of Deep Night anime film will officially arrive to North America and Europe in February 2023. Crunchyroll will screen the movie in theaters across English-speaking territories in partnership with Aniplex of America. A trailer with English subtitles has been released, but is region-locked:
The trailer features the movie’s theme song, “Heart“, by Eir Aoi. Sword Art Online: Progressive – Scherzo of Deep Night will premiere on February 1 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, in Australia and New Zealand on February 2, and in the United States and Canada on February 3. Additional release dates for Sword Art Online: Progressive – Scherzo of Deep Night will be announced soon for some parts of Europe and Latin America.
Sword Art Online: Progressive – Scherzo of Deep Night premiered on October 22, 2022 in IMAX theatres in Japan, and it topped the Japanese Box Office revenue during the opening weekend. The movie was initially set to premiere on September 10, 2022, but it was postponed due to the rise of COVID-19 cases in Japan. Crunchyroll describes the plot of the movie as:
The world’s first VRMMORPG (Sword Art Online) became a game of death. Over a month has passed since 10,000 users were trapped inside the game world. Asuna, who cleared the first floor of the floating iron castle of Aincrad, joined up with Kirito and continued her journey to reach the top floor. With the support of female Information Broker Argo, clearing the floors seemed to be progressing smoothly, but…
Conflict erupts between two major guilds who should be working together – the top player groups ALS (the Aincrad Liberation Squad) and DKB (the Dragon Knights Brigade). And meanwhile, behind the scenes exists a mysterious figure pulling the strings….
In a dangerous battle of death, there is an assault that differs from the threat, and it will involve Asuna and Kirito…!
Part 1 of the movie series, titled Sword Art Online: Progressive – Aria of a Starless Night premiered on October 30, 2022, in Japan. It was also released in the United States by Funimation. The movie is now available to stream on Crunchyroll. Ayako Kono directed it at studio A-1 Pictures.
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Sword Art Online: Progressive is a spin-off series of the original Sword Art Online. The Progressive series shows the events between Kirito and Asuna during their early days at the floating castle, Aincrad, which was not shown in the original anime series because of the time skip.
Sword Art Online season 1 premiered on July 8, 2012. It was followed by multiple seasons until 2020. The franchise marked its 10th anniversary on July 8, 2022, and a celebration was helped on November 6 of the same year. A movie titled Sword Art Online: Extra Edition was also released in 2013, and Sword Art Online: The Movie – Ordinal Scale in 2017.
The anime is based on Reki Kawahara’s Sword Art Online light novel series. ASCII Media Works has been serializing it with abec’s illustrations since 2009, and it currently has 27 volumes with more than 30 million copies in circulation. The same publisher started publishing Kawahara’s Sword Art Online: Progressive light novel series in 2012, and as of now, it has 8 volumes available. Yen Press licensed both of the light novel series in English.
Source: Press Release and Official Website
© 2020 Reki Kawahara / KADOKAWA / SAO-P Project