Sword Art Online: Progressive – Scherzo of Deep Night topped the Japanese box office during its opening weekend. The movie premiered on October 22, 2022 (Saturday) in theatres in Japan. The anime film earned more than 323 million yen in just 2 days (~US$2.17 million), and sold over 199, 000 tickets. The franchise expressed their appreciation to the fans with a new short teaser, dedicated to the milestone:
This is the third time that a movie from the Sword Art Online franchise has topped the Japanese box office after its opening weekend. The first one was Sword Art Online The Movie – Ordinal Scale, which earned over 425 million yen (~US$2.85 million) during its opening weekend (February 18-19, 2017). The second was Sword Art Online: Progressive – Aria of a Starless Night which premiered on October 30, 2021, and earned 349 million yen (~US$2.34 million) during its opening weekend.
Yoshitsugu Matsuoka and Haruka Tomatsu are reprising their roles as Kirito and Asuna. Inori Minase also restated her role as the anime original character, Mito. Shiori Izawa also returned to the franchise after 10 years to voice Argo, the information broker who first appeared in episode 3 of the original Sword Art Online series. The anime film was initially scheduled to premiere on September 10, 2022, but was postponed to October 22, due to the sudden rise of COVID-19 cases in Japan. Ayako Kono directed the movie at studio A-1 Pictures.
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Sword Art Online Reveals First Opening and Ending Collection Video
Sword Art Online Completes Opening and Ending Collection With Second Video
Sword Art Online: Progressive is a Japanese light novel series by Reki Kawahara with abec’s illustrations. ASCII Media Works has been serializing it since 2012, and it currently has 8 volumes in circulation. The second Progressive movie adapts the events of the fifth floor in Aincrad, which can be found in Volume 5 of the light novel series. Yen Press licensed the Sword Art Online: Progressive light novel series in English.
Source: Official Twitter, Kogyo Tsushin
© 2020 Reki Kawahara / KADOKAWA / SAO-P Project
