The year is 2022, and there has been a breakthrough in virtual reality technology. Engineers succeeded in creating a headgear called NerveGear – a tool capable of bringing the user’s consciousness into the world of games. The launch title for this platform was Sword Art Online (SAO). Yuuki Asuna accidentally finds this kit along with the game in her older brother’s room.  Encouraged by a classmate, she decides to put on the helmet and test the game.

Unfortunately, she didn’t yet know what awaited her. In the game itself she finds her friend quite quickly, but after a few moments spent enjoying the game world, it turns out that Sword Art Online lacks a key feature – you can’t log out and return to the real world. Doubts are dispelled by the game developer himself, after forcibly teleporting all players to the main city courtyard. He declares that the lack of a logout option is not a bug. Attempts at manual disconnection by the family will result in the player’s immediate death, as will their death in the Sword Art Online world itself. The only way to leave the virtual hell becomes completing the game.

Sword Art Online: Progressive – Hoshi Naki Yoru no Aria – Audiovisual design

This film is simply a feast for the eyes. Animation was maintained throughout the film, at a consistently high level. No costs were cut here at all on details even in very dynamic scenes. Character designs are a combination of what we saw in season one and Alicization – it came out quite well (although I still prefer the design from season one). CGI effects (not to be confused with 3D graphics) were used and combined with traditional animation quite smoothly, which doesn’t happen often.

Kajiura Yuki is responsible for the soundtrack. Here an unpopular opinion – I am not (usually) a fan of her soundtracks. She specializes in blockbuster soundtracks, which generally tends to put me off. I didn’t like the music in Ufotable studio’s Fate adaptations. I think Kawai Kenji in the Deen studio adaptation did an incomparably better and, above all, more memorable job. But! The situation is a bit different in this film. The soundtrack really highlighted the important moments in the film. The already known themes from SAO was used brilliantly to create new arrangements. In the action scenes, the motifs with the transverse flute and violin doubled the thrill and evoked a sense of ‘hope’ already familiar from the first season of SAO. Also noteworthy was LiSA, the vocalist who sang the song from the ED (往け / Yuke). That leaves the issue of essentially the most important – the voice actors. As in the anime series, they did a great job here.

Tomatsu Haruka as Asuna and Minase Inori as Misumi are simply magic. I wish I could have seen this movie in the theater.

Sword Art Online: Progressive – Hoshi Naki Yoru no Aria – Plot and Characters

I won’t describe here what SAO is about and introduce the world of Aincrad, because I already wrote about it in my review of the series here. In short, Progressive focuses on a more accurate portrayal of events in Aincrad. In the original LN and adaptation, only 75 of the 100 levels were shown, many of which were only mentioned with brief shots. I have not read Progressive, nor is this a review of the novel. The main difference in the film is that the whole story is told from Asuna’s perspective (rather than Kirito’s, as in the TV series). At the beginning we learn about her family situation and see the pressure she is constantly under, being forced into the rat race at a prestigious school.

The first half of the film is basically a decent chunk of new information about Asuna and Misumi. I don’t want to go into detail so as not to spoil, but I’ll just mention that quite a few events later in the story take on a whole new tone. Asuna is introduced as a girl who doesn’t have the faintest idea about games (because her mother forbids her to waste her time on ‘silly’ things). The world of entertainment is basically only shown to her by Misumi – a model student scoring the best possible grades and topping the student rankings at their school. She’s the one who tells Asuna with fascination about NerveGear, a revolutionary technology from the VR industry that allows you to move completely into a virtual world. She is also partly responsible for Asuna hitting the road without return to the world of Aincrad.

I won’t beat around the bush. Showing the beginning of the story through Asuna’s eyes was an excellent idea. The only remaining question is whether to watch the movie first, or maybe it’s better to start with the TV series (if one is still by some miracle unfamiliar with SAO). In my opinion – it’s definitely better to watch the adaptation in the form of a TV series first, based on the original novels and only later, after watching the whole thing, come back to this film (and subsequent ones). This will provide a much better experience, which will involve a greater appreciation of the original, given the information we glean from Progressive.

Evaluation and Summary

To be honest, I didn’t think that this adaptation would add so much to the overall story and give a slightly different perspective on future events. I didn’t follow the behind-the-scenes of the making of this film, as well as what the Progressive annotated novels were about, and overall I’m glad I didn’t, as it allowed me to appreciate this title more. I look forward to the next films (and unfortunately it will be some time until I get to see them).

Finalny werdykt

Final evaluation

Which translation do I recommend to watch Sword Art Online: Progressive – Hoshi Naki Yoru no Aria?

• MTBB – second sub track.

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