After the screening of Sword Art Online Extra Edition, the New Years special that recapped the 2012 anime series with a few new scenes, the almighty and highly anticipated season 2 of Sword Art Online was announced for 2014. Sword Art Online II will continue where the first series and the special left off, as Kirito and the gang venture into another game, Gun Gale Online.It has been confirmed that the second season will indeed be the Phantom Bullet Arc, which does feature the GGO game. The game itself is Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter. The arc itself also features a new main character: Shino. The A-1 Pictures released the first visual for Sword Art Online II which features Shino and Kirito, as they appear in GGO.
Of course, the entire announcement was from a video shown at the end of Sword Art Online Extra Edition, which was released and can be seen below.
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 and has 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 2012 and was produced by A-1 Pictures, which received a large reception. Since then, the series has appeared on a plethora of media from handheld and browser video games, to spin off mangas and international merchandise. The latest canonical light novel, the thirteenth in the series, was released in Japan on August 10th 2013. In addition, Kawahara has relaunched the series as Sword Art Online: Progressive, a re-release of the light novels with additional content. The second issue of Sword Art Online: Progressive launched in October 2013.
If you haven’t seen or read the series, here is a synopsis from MAL:
In the near future, a Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG) called Sword Art Online has been released where players control their avatars with their bodies using a piece of technology called Nerve Gear. One day, players discover they cannot log out, as the game creator is holding them captive unless they reach the 100th floor of the game’s tower and defeat the final boss. However, if they die in the game, they die in real life. Their struggle for survival starts now…
Sword Art Online II will be airing in 2014, the estimated season is still unknown. The structure of the second season, whether it will be a 2 cour or single cour show, is also relatively unknown. In the meantime you can visit the official website for Sword Art Online and its second season: http://www.swordart-online.net/
“Sword Art Online”, “Sword Art Online II/2”, “Sword Art Online Extra Edition”, images, video and all associated brands and titles © 2014 Reki Kawahara, A-1 Pictures and the SAO Project.