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Sword Art Online Announcement Teased for New Years Day

During today’s livestream on the upcoming multimedia projects of Reki Kawahara’s Sword Art Online, it was revealed that an announcement regarding the series will be made on New Years Day, January 1st 2017. It will occur after a NicoNico rebroadcast of the anime.

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The livestream was held to discuss and showcase some of the upcoming multimedia products based on Reki Kawahara’s Sword Art Online light novel series, including console games, mobile games, and anime. The event revealed that a rebroadcast of the 2013 Sword Art Online anime, Sword Art Online: Extra Edition and Sword Art Online Season 2 will be live streamed on NicoNico.

The first season will be streamed on December 30th along with the Extra Edition OVA and the second season will be streamed on the 31st. Following the second season, an announcement will be made.

A similar occurrence happened at the end of 2013 following the broadcast of Sword Art Online: Extra Edition where the second season was announced on January 1st, 2014.

You can view the full live stream on Bandai’s channel here:

In addition to the rebroadcast, there will also be an original film Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale, which is set to release worldwide on February 18th, 2017.

 

The film will feature the new AR-VMMORPG Ordinal Scale that utilises the new Augma Augmented Reality device. Players rank up in the game by defeating monsters and using special items.It will have an original story, not adapting of Kawahara’s any previous work; it will be set after the Mother’s Rosario arc, which was the third and final arc to be animated in Sword Art Online II.

The film’s first theatrical trailer.

And here is the second full trailer, which introduces the new game and AR technology and the new characters that will debut in the film:

The Director of first two seasons, Tomohiko Ito (Silver Spoon, Seikimatsu Occult Gakui), will return to direct the film alongside Anime Character Designer Shingo Adachi (Working!!, Galilei Donna). Yuki Kajiura (Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica, Fate/Zero) will also return to compose the music and A-1 Pictures (Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, AnoHana) will be back to animate the film. Reki Kawahara will be writing the movie’s original story.

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Sword Art Online is a light novel series written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec, 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 17 volumes have been compiled in the series. Since the series’ debut, the series has sold over 19 million copies, with 12.5 million sold in Japan alone. 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; it was followed by a recap film and a second season. Since then, the series has appeared on a plethora of media with international merchandise, various manga adaptations of the light novel’s arcs, and video games. In addition, Kawahara has relaunched the series as Sword Art Online: Progressive, a re-release of the light novels with additional content. An original anime movie is in production for February 18th, 2017.

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.

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A Sword Art Online announcement will be made on January 1st on NicoNico following the rebroadcast of the anime’s first season, OVA and second season. The original anime film, Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale will release worldwide on February 18th, 2017.

Visit the film’s website here: http://sao-movie.net/
Check out their International site here: http://sao-movie.net/us/
And follow the latest developments on their Twitter: @sao_anime

Source Article and Image - Reddit Anime
Source Article - Bandai Namco Youtube

“Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale”, “Sword Art Online”, images and all associated brands and titles © 2016 Reki Kawahara, A-1 Pictures, ASCII Media Works and the SAO Project