This follow-up movie had a lot of pieces to pick up, and unfortunately, most of them failed to connect. The pacing of Scherzo is strange, from the out-of-place jokes to the emotional beats that don't receive enough buildup. Compared to the first movie, Scherzo also has less character development. Asuna went from a rising star in Aria to a static constant in Scherzo. We saw Kirito as an awkward middle schooler in Aria, which was an interesting take on the unrelatably-flawless hero of the original timeline. That extra dimension of him is now gone.
The most disappointing part of Scherzo was the lackluster animation. I thought that the anime series looked great in 2012, and Aria built upon that foundation with flashier effects and punchier impacts. Scherzo, on the other hand, features a whole lot of inconsistent faces, off-model character shots, and jittery motions. I honestly have a hard time believing the same production team worked on both movies.
I wanted to like Scherzo of Deep Night because Aria of a Starless Night pleasantly surprised me. I came in with tempered expectations (it's still SAO, let's be real), but I felt let down by the noticeably many ways Scherzo fails to even come close to its predecessor. If there are any more SAO Progressive movies in the works, I hope they take after the first movie more than the second.
