Sword Art Online Progressive -Aria of a Starless Night- earned over 1 billion yen (~US$8.79 million) in three weeks. The anime film premiered on October 30, 2021, in theatres in Japan.
The official Twitter account for the series also shared the news, while thanking the fans for continued support:
The movie topped the Japanese Box Office revenue during its opening weekend, where it earned over 349 million yen (~US$3.04 million). It is also the first film in Japan to use an IMAX 12-channel sound system ever.
Sword Art Online Progressive -Aria of a Starless Night- will be available in more than 40 countries soon. Funimation will screen the movie in theatres around the United States and Canada starting on December 3, 2021, and you can already buy tickets. Odex will be having a fan screening of the movie in Singapore on November 20, 2021, and will deliver it in Southeast Asian countries in January 2022. The movie will also be available in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Latin America. It will also screen in the regions of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf, North Africa, and the Middle East.
Aniplex America released the first dubbed trailer of Sword Art Online Progressive – Aria of a Starless Night- and you can watch it below:
Sword Art Online Progressive -Aria of a Starless Night- anime film is based on Reki Kawahara’s Sword Art Online: Progressive light novel series. ASCII Media Works started publishing it in October 2012. The light novel is still ongoing and currently has 8 volumes available. The anime film adapts some parts of the novel’s first volume.
A-1 Pictures (Sword Art Online series, 86-Eighty Six-) animated the movie, while Ayako Kono (Gate) directed it. The sequel film, Sword Art Online: Progressive – Kuraki Yuuyami no Scherzo, has also been announced.
Yen Press is currently publishing Sword Art Online: Progressive light novel series in English:
“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?
Yen Press
Source: Official Twitter
©2020 川原 礫/KADOKAWA/SAO-P Project