#ODEX Teases Sword Art Online Progressive SEA Release For 2021

A recent update on ODEX’s Facebook page suggests that the anime distributor will be bringing the Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Aria of a Starless Night movie to Southeast Asia.

The ODEX Private Limited Facebook page updated its cover image to feature a banner of the light novel adaptation, which includes the words, “Coming 2021.” The pages for ODEX Malaysia & Brunei, ODEX Vietnam, and ODEX Laos also updated their respective cover images with the banner. 

Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Aria of a Starless Night was announced in September 2020 sans its current full title. In November 2020, it was revealed that it would adapt the Aria on a Starless Night story from the first volume of the Sword Art Online: Progressive light novels. The movie will release in Japan in Fall 2021. 

Ayako Kōno (86 EIGHTY–SIX Ep 4 storyboarder) is directing the movie. Kento Toya is in charge of character designs, while Yasuyuki Kai and Yuki Kajiura are the action director and music composer respectively. A-1 Pictures is in charge of animation production.

The Sword Art Online: Progressive light novels expand upon the Aincrad arc told within the first volume of the main Sword Art Online light novel series. Unlike the main series’ Aincrad arc, which was told entirely through protagonist Kirito’s perspective, Aria on a Starless Night features several chapters told from the perspective of main series heroine Asuna Yuuki, albeit using a third-person point of view instead of the first-person point of view found in Kirito’s chapters.

Yen Press, who is publishing the English version of the Sword Art Online: Progressive light novels, describes the first volume 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!

In March 2021, it was announced that the movie will include a new character called Mito (Inori Minase), who did not appear in the original light novel.