The official website of the Sword art online franchise announced on Tuesday that Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Aria of a Starless Night The animated film will be screened in Dolby theaters in Japan from November 26.

The film will also offer viewers from November 20 to 26 a postcard with a code to listen to a vocal drama, with a screenplay by the original light novel author. Reki kawahara. The vocal drama will focus on the “first day” stories of Lisbeth and Silica.

The film opened in Japan on October 30 in standard and IMAX theaters, and topped the box office on its first weekend. The film grossed 134,363,672 yen (approximately US $ 1.17 million) from Friday to Sunday, and earned a cumulative total of 948,575,173 yen (approximately US $ 8.30 million).

A new film titled Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Kuraki Yūyami no Scherzo (Scherzo of a Dark Dusk) will open in 2022.

Funimation will premiere the film in standard and IMAX theaters in the US and Canada on December 3 and in Australia and New Zealand on December 9. The film will also be screened soon in the UK, Ireland and Latin America. The film will be released in more than 40 countries and territories around the world. Odex will screen the film in Southeast Asia this year.

Funimation describes the movie:

It’s a story from before “Lightning Flash” and “The Black Swordsman” were known by these names …

The day she donned the NerveGear, Asuna Yuuki was a third year college student who had never touched an online game before. On November 6, 2022, the world’s first VRMMORPG, Sword Art Online, officially launched. But players, still euphoric for logging in, suddenly find themselves trapped inside the game when the Game Master deprives them of any means to log out.

The Game Master then gives them this warning “This may be a game, but it is not something you are playing.” If a player dies in the game, they die in the real world.

Hearing this, all players panic and pandemonium reigns. One of those players is Asuna, but although she does not yet know the rules of this world, she sets out to conquer the floating iron castle, Aincrad, whose summit is too high to be seen. Over the days in this world where death is never far away, she makes a fateful encounter. And then, a separation …

Despite being at the mercy of the reality in front of her eyes, Asuna fights with all her might until someone appears in front of her: the distant swordsman, Kirito…

Ayako Kohno (unit director on Black Butler: Atlantic Book, High school fleet, The Seven Deadly Sins Movie: Prisoners of Heaven) directed the film at A-1 Photos, and Kento Toya (Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld, The Seven Deadly Sins: Awakening of the Commandments) designed the characters. Yasuyuki Kai served as action director, and Yuki kajiura came back to compose the music.

The anime is based on Reki kawahara‘s Sword Art Online: Progressive Light novel series. The novel series launched in 2012 as a revised version of Kawahara’s original Sword art online novels. The story depicts Kirito’s journey through the Aincrad Floating Castle from the start, floor by floor. Yen Press published on Sword Art Online: Progressive series of novels in English, as well as two manga adaptations.

Sources: Sword art online anime website, Mainichi Shimbun’s Mantan Web