#Singapore To Have Sword Art Online Progressive Fan Screening on November 20

A fan’s screening session of Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Aria of a Starless Night will kick off in Singapore on November 20. The 97-minute film will be screened with English and Mandarin subtitles at Orchard Cineleisure and will only be opened to vaccinated customers. 

The fan’s screening goodies include a T-shirt, four A2-sized posters, a can badge, an A4 file folder, and acrylic stands of Asuna and Kirito. 

The film is scheduled to screen on October 30 in Japan, with Aniplex releasing a new trailer in September.

The film is inspired by Aria on a Starless Night, one of the stories from the Sword Art Online: Progressive light novels’ first volume. However, the movie features an original character called Mito and appears to have a heavier focus on series heroine Asuna.

The Progressive series expands on the “Aincrad Arc” of the original and still ongoing Sword Art Online series. The first volume was published in 2012, while the eighth and latest volume was published in June 2021. Both the main and Progressive series are written by Reki Kawahara with illustrations by abec.

Yen Press describes Progressive 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!

The film’s staff includes Ayako Kōnō (86 EIGHTY-SIX storyboarder) as director, Kento Toya (Sword Art Online Alicization War of Underworld co-character designer and co-chief animation director) as character designer and chief animation director, and Yasuyuki Kai (My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission key animator, Haikyu! The Movie: Battle of Concepts co-action animation director) as action director.

Other staff include Yusa Itō (Woodpecker Detective’s Office) as art director, Naomi Nakano (The Aquatope on White Sand) as color designer, Yuki Ōshima (Cells at Work!!) as photography director, Kengo Oda (Sword Art Online Alicization War of Underworld Final Season) and Hiroshi Nakajima (Fate/Apocrypha) as CG directors, and Yuki Kajiura (The Case Study of Vanitas) as music composer.

Additionally, Aya Akizuki (Sword Art Online Alicization War of Underworld co-sub designer), Tomomi Ishikawa (PERSONA5 the Animation character designer), and Keisuke Watanabe (Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club chief animation director) are the sub character designers. A-1 Pictures is animating the film.

Meanwhile, the cast includes Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Kirito, Haruka Tomatsu as Asuna, and Inori Minase as Mito.

Source: ODEX