Japanese publisher Kadokawa has announced that the anime movie Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale “will be simultaneously released worldwide” on Saturday, February 18, 2017.
As previously reported, the upcoming anime film is set to be released worldwide in about 1,000 theaters in nine (9) languages, but the latest announcement did not reveal how will the simultaneous release be done.
Aniplex of America, the American subsidiary of the Japanese anime studio Aniplex, also released a new English trailer with scenes featuring new characters.
In 2026, two years since the SAO incident, a new game called “Oridinal Scale,” an Augmented-Reality MMO, is becoming popular among the players. But…strange things are happening in the game and Kirito and the gang are facing a new danger. (Synopsis from Aniplex of America)
Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale is the anime film adaptation of the highly-popular light novel series Sword Art Online, written by Reki Kawahara with illustrations by abec.
The novel was released by ASCII Media Works since April 2009 under their Dengeki Bunko imprint, which currently has 18 volumes. After the release of its highly-popular anime series in 2012, the franchise has expanded to multiple novels, manga and video games.
The upcoming film will be an original story that will take place after the “Mother Rosario” arc (Sword Art Online II), which will be written by Reki Kawahawa and directed by Tomohiko Ito. Character designs will once again be made by Shingo Adachi for anime studio A-1 Pictures.
Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (as Kirito), Haruka Tomatsu (as Asuna), Rina Hidaka (as Silica), Ayahi Takagaki (as Lisbeth), Miyuki Sawashiro (as Sinon), Hiroaki Hirata (as Klein) are set to return to voice their characters in the movie.
For more details regarding Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale, please visit their website at sao-movie.net.
