Sword Art Online: Progressive Movie - Hoshi Naki Yoru no Aria

Excelling socially and academically, Asuna Yuuki is on track to ace her high school entrance exams. Her friend and classmate, Misumi "Mito" Tozawa, advises her to take a short break from studying and join her on the launch day of Sword Art Online (SAO)—the highly anticipated online virtual reality multiplayer game. Asuna accepts her offer and soon meets her in the game.

In a cruel twist of fate, Asuna, Mito, and every other player logged into SAO find themselves trapped in the game permanently. The only way out is to clear all one hundred floors of the game, and to make matters worse, dying inside the game will kill the player in real life. With SAO now turned into a nightmare death trap, Asuna and other gamers—such as the lone swordsman Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya—must adapt and survive, all whilst attempting to beat the unforgiving competition to the top.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kirigaya, Kazuto Main

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Yuuki, Asuna Main

Tomatsu, Haruka Japanese

Tozawa, Misumi Main

Minase, Inori Japanese

Tsuboi, Ryoutarou Supporting

Hirata, Hiroaki Japanese

Ayano, Keiko Supporting

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Kayaba, Akihiko Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Mills, Andrew Gilbert Supporting

Yasumoto, Hiroki Japanese

Argo Supporting

Izawa, Shiori Japanese

Heathcliff Supporting

Diabel Supporting

Hiyama, Nobuyuki Japanese

Futami, Yousuke Producer

Niwa, Masami Producer

Kawakami, Ryuutarou Producer

Kuroi, Hitomi Assistant Producer

Reviews

Oct 30, 2021

JongoPorgo

Recommended

It's no surprise that SAO is one of the most significant franchises in the anime industry. No matter how each of us feels about it. We're not maniacs, are we?

I don't even know what to say. Perfect balance. The pacing is great, the visuals and the story are well adapted. (even including Mito) Music from Yuki Kajiura, as usual Godtear. If you are a fan of the franchise, then this is one hundred percent win. But even for people unfamiliar with original anime it will be interesting, or even become the door to the franchise.

I went to see the movie with a friend of ... mine who stopped watching SAO on the first season and he really liked to.

The relationships of the characters who try to grasp the reality of the death-game concept are interesting. The atmosphere of pressure, which grows into a light hope crashed into harsh reality, can also lure the viewer and of course the very spirit of virtual immersion. For me personally, this movie is much better than Ordinal Scale

As a fan. My scrore will be 9 but even objectively the film deserves a minimum of 8.

P.s ( Unless you are a "crazy hater/troll" who wants to attract attention or something. Just putting 1 point out of 10 without objective facts. Because this is an adult act, right? )

P.S.S ( And yes, please. There is no need to fool people that you allegedly watched a movie (( if you are going )). At the time of this review, it was only viewable in Japan and I highly doubt that presumable future English speaking reviewers live in Japan. There is no need to spread misinformation or hate for the sake of hate. Have self-esteem for others and for yourself. )

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Dec 7, 2021

Snolled

Mixed Feelings

Funny

Sword Art Online: Progressive Review
From a person that has not watched any SAO Series.

**This is my first review on MAL**

Surprisingly, good except for the storyline.
A-1 Graphics and animations alleviates this movie a lot.

[Story 4/10] [Character 5/10]
The story is very short and doesn't have anything relevant. The whole plot is mostly the intro of the series. The story is brief to the point that I can summarize it in only 5 minutes. Most of the air times in this series are edgy scenes, specifically the MC, who I had to watch his edgy personality for about an hour. About the jokes in this series, they are ... directing Kirito to be a comical character, which I personally like. In this movie, Kirito isn't an OP MC and has a harem, which adds more to my liking. My most favorite moments are Kirito's interaction with Asuna, where he is always nervous and jumpy around her. Yoshitsugu Matsuoka uses his voice acting in these parts very well too.

[Animation 9/10]
Animation is great. Action scenes are
natural and very smooth. Other than that, it just has a microscopic scene that burns the animation for like 2 second, which is not a big deal.
[Sound 10/10]
Music and sound effects are a masterpiece. Although the first half of the movie doesn't include many fight scenes making is very inviting to sleep, the BGM helps a lot, keeping me from sleeping. I enjoy Ayase's OST and LiSA's vocals the most. To be exact, I played the song on repeat for almost 70 times (not lying). About the voice actors, there were no problems with their acting in my opinion. Inori Minase and Haruka Tomatsu did good like their past works.

[Enjoyment 7/10] [Overall 5/10]
Overall, I enjoyed this series, but at the end of the day, I can give this series only a 5/10 mainly because of the story.

Special thanks to my friend that translate this review to English Ver.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 25, 2022

Dante012

Not Recommended

A major disappointment. I loved half of SAO (hated the other), but since I am a fan of Aincrad, I figured a retelling with a better rythm would work.
Well... this really doesn't work that well.

STORY
This first movie retells the first two episodes, but Asuna is the main character. Just to be clear, this is a REBOOT. It's not consistent with what they had shown in the series. For example, the relationship between Kirito and Asuna starts much sooner.

But that's not really a problem... as long as it does tell new things. Basically, the movie has 3 major events:

- the first day of Aincrad.
- the Boss ... battle.
- Mito's leaving the forest.

While the latter is very interesting, the other two are literally what we'd already seen in the series, except they clumsily showhorn Mito into them. For example, she participates in the final stand against the Boss. But since that battle was written as the first combo between Kirito and Asuna, Mito feels utterly out of place!

So, if it only has 3 major events, what else does this movie tell? Slice. Of. Life. You see Asuna going to school and chatting with girl friends. You see her take a bath. You see her eat.
Absolutely nothing interesting in terms of plot...

So we get a Slice of Life movie, where 2 of the 3 major events are things we already know, without any relevant changes.
Now, there's still hope. After all, this is just the first movie, and it basically adapts only the first novel (which covers only 2 episodes). The next movies will have much more new content.

But this one? It's just a boring retell of a story that DID need a longer version...
And in fact, it's a bad retellinng. Many major scenes in this movie don't have the same impact they had in the series. Kayaba's chilling announcement isn't chilling anymore, the epic Boss fight isn't epic anymore...


ART
Progressive is beautiful. But no battle truly stands out. The fights are short, and the animated scenes in those fights are even shorter. Sometimes you get 10 seconds of wonderful skills, but then it's over and it's just... bland.

SAO had a wonderful animation in its first season. Ordinal Scale and War of Underworld had incredible fights too. But sadly, in this movie, the fights just aren't really worth watching.


SOUND
Great seiyuus as usual. The music is very good... but there's few new tracks. I'm a bit disappointed in Kajiura, who is my favourite composer ever.


CHARACTER
Mito is an interesting new member of the cast. She's relevant to the story, as she's a beta-tester. But her story is basically over at the end of this movie, since the distinction between beta-testers and other players is non-existent afterwards. I fear she might become irrelevant like most SAO characters...

Asuna is a bit deeper than usual. Having her as a main character is definitely cool. One thing that really annoyed me is the fact that she's shown as a gamer BEFORE getting into SAO. And the fact that she was trained by a beta-tester is a bit disturbing too.
I mean, it's not inconsistent, but Asuna felt like a noob in the series, she didn't even know how to see an ally's HP. The movie did tackle this point, but again : it was clumsy. Mito and Asuna spent 3 weeks together, and yet Mito never told Asuna how to see her HP bar??? Not possible, but the movie still treats it like that. "Look, I included that fact in the story, so it's not inconsistent, ok?"

Kirito doesn't appear much, but I enjoyed the portrayal of his social anxiety. He's clumsy, timid, not very charismatic, but it works for this character! Sadly, his interest towards the story is low, as the major plot points surrounding him are cut: we don't hear Diabel's words towards him, we don't see his first days...
He's definitely a support character instead of a MC.


ENJOYMENT
I knew what to expect, but I'm still disappointed. The point of Progressive is to fill the Aincrad arc. That's what this movie does, but I don't think filling the plot with constant slice of life was that great of an idea.
The author needed to expand on the important matters. Like the relationships between beta-testers and others. That's what it could have done with Mito, but it didn't really do it.

Even visually, this isn't extraordinary. Really, this movie doesn't fix Aincrad ; it only made it worse. Now who knows, maybe the next movies will be more interesting.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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