The official website of Reki Kawahara’s Sword Art Online anime adaptation has released its preview images and the preview video for the upcoming 20th episode of Sword Art Online II, due to air on Saturday the 22nd of November at 11:30pm JST.
Episode 20: Sleeping Knights
Yuuki has brought Asuna to meet her guild Sleeping Knights, a small guild of 6 members, and requests her to help the guild in their upcoming task. The guild itself is about to disband due to circumstances with the group’s members. The guild members want to mark their name in the game and leave a memory of themselves in the game’s world to let everyone know that they existed. To do that, they will need to defeat the next floor’s boss, but need Asuna’s help. But the boss itself is an extremely difficult raid, even for a guild of 49 people across multiple parties. And with Sleeping Knight and Asuna, a group of 7 party members would surely mean defeat. To be against all the odds, Asuna is hesitant to reply…
Sword Art Online is a light novel series written by Reki Kawahara, who also is the author of Accel World. The light novel series began in 2009 being published in ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Bunko. To date a total of 15 volumes have been compiled in the series, released in Japan on August 9th 2014. . Since then it sold millions of copies, topping the charts in 2012. Additionally in 2012, an anime adaptation was released. The Sword Art Online anime aired in July and was produced by A-1 Pictures, which received a large reception. Since then, the series has appeared on a plethora of media with handheld and browser video games, international merchandise, and the many spin-off manga of the light novel’s arcs. The latest manga volume, Sword Art Online: Caliber, began serialization in the September issue of Dengeki G’s Comic magazine. In addition, Kawahara has relaunched the series as Sword Art Online: Progressive, a re-release of the light novels with additional content. A new light novel adaptation titled Sword Art Online: Alternative will begin publication on December 10th.
Here is a synopsis of the anime from MAL:
1 year after the SAO incident, Kirito is approached by Seijiro Kikuoka from Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Department “VR Division” with a rather peculiar request.
That was an investigation on the “Death Gun” incident that occurred in the gun and steel filled VRMMO called Gun Gale Online (GGO). “Players who are shot by a mysterious avatar with a jet black gun lose their lives even in the real world…” Failing to turn down Kikuoka’s bizarre request, Kirito logs in to GGO even though he is not completely convinced that the virtual world could physically affect the real world.
Kirito wanders in an unfamiliar world in order to gain any clues about the “Death Gun.” Then, a female sniper named Sinon who owns a gigantic “Hecate II” rifle extends Kirito a helping hand. With Sinon’s help, Kirito decides to enter the “Bullet of Bullets,” a large tournament to choose the most powerful gunner within the realm of GGO, in hopes to become the target of the “Death Gun” and make direct contact with the mysterious avatar.
You can visit the anime’s official website here: http://www.swordart-online.net/
And follow the latest developments on their Twitter: @sao_anime
“Sword Art Online”, “Sword Art Online II″, images, video and all associated brands and titles © 2014 Reki Kawahara, A-1 Pictures, ASCII Media Works and the SAO Project