Anime: Gekijouban Sword Art Online: Progressive - Hoshinaki Yoru no Aria

Sword Art Online: Progressive - Aria of the Starless Night is a movie length anime released in 2022. This movie does not really stick to the original plot of the original SAO nor is it a complete reboot; it is a retcon (retroactive continuity) of sorts, in a similar manner to Railgun S, and is also a game-like remake with updated animation. It describes the first couple of episodes of the first season of SAO through the POV of Asuna Yuki, with her own new arc and the aforementioned retconned version of the first boss battle from SAO.

SAO, originally written by Reki Kawahara, is more or less the flagship title of A-1 pictures, and one they refuse to let go despite there being other much more promising titles, in terms of everything but the seasonal hype, that they were a part of. Conversely, SAO has up until now lived off of fan hype and by showing the viewer mindless action and what is apparently drama; the actual series has nothing to show for itself after the last movie. Clearly one of the reasons this movie was well received is that it went back to the first arc of the first season of SAO. Back then the storyline made sense somewhat and even I had bouts of nostalgia watching this. The alternative for A-1 and Kawahara would be to continue on from the end of the Alicization arc, by which point SAO became an overcomplicated and preposterous mess with no foresight, and even they seem to understand that continuing it as it is would not be very smart.

This movie is the start of the adaptation of the Progressive arc of SAO, which was up until now a semi-mythical object that when adapted would suddenly fix all problems that the first half of the first season of SAO (the Aincrad arc) had, or so it is according to its fans. So far, the only real thing that this movie solved in terms of plot is to explain the character of Asuna and her origins. In the very least it is believable that she ended up where she was because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and in general her relationship with Mito was one of the more believable such friendships in this anime. Notwithstanding how it was executed, the authors of SAO finally managed to concentrate on a single certain theme and more or less pull it off. That theme is the durability of friendship; how far would your friends go for you and what will it take for them to abandon you.This is a good theme and one that the authors could have presented better, especially the coping part, but this is already a milestone for this series in terms of drama. Most importantly, there is no stupid evil sexual predator antagonist like there was in every arc of SAO after Aincrad. So far there is only the evil guy from the first season, but his presence is minimal. This is honestly an advantage of this movie.

The plot of SAO has always been spoon-fed to the viewer, in that a plot development could be seen from a mile away. There is a very clear cut line between foreshadowing and crudely building up a plot development. In the case of this movie, this would be the haphazard betrayal by Mito, where there really was no room even for doubt as to what was going to happen. It does not help that the plot is likewise exceedingly simple and can be summarized in a couple of paragraphs, if you can decipher it. Traditionally, SAO has battled its perceived simplicity in direction and plot with an unusually sounding and long title and a fairly cool premise, for 2012. The premise also changes almost for each season, which is also supposed to add to the variety of the series. Alicization went a different route, by augmenting the premise, and therefore the plot, to the point of incomprehensibility, and by adding pointless gore and sexual violence to make the series look more mature. Progressive instead shadows the methods of the original SAO, but at least it is less focused on them and tries to focus on its own version of character development, such that it is, but also suffers from similar levels of naivety.

The second major problem of this movie is that it does not even try to move away or make a play on most of the cliches that the series had since 2012. The authors left them in there seemingly almost on instinct. Asuna is introduced as a top student with a very demanding but rich family, who is friends with a likewise academically gifted gamer girl Mito. This is an example of such cliche and is a cheap way to get the viewer to like the characters right off the bat.

As was the case with the first half of the first season, the artistic inspirations are all too clear but are nevertheless meritable by themselves at least, the most obvious being Laputa: Castle in the Sky, from which Aincrad was quite clearly taken from, minus the steampunk vibes. Perhaps Made in Abyss also was similar in terms of environments.

Finally, the movie may be a full-length anime movie, but it is still rather short. There was not that much world building in either the first season nor in this series so far. I know it is probably too early, but there was hardly any exposition as to the world.

As this is a movie, it has more production values as opposed to a regular season. The animation is far better than the last arc of Alicization, that much is certain. The authors did not attempt any shenanigans with CGI battles like they did with Alicization which is also good. The graphics are fluid and are also obviously improved from those of the original, though the art style remains mostly the same.

Oddly enough, SAO as a movie format does not come off nearly as sour as a serial anime would. The good news is that the viewers and fans get relatively decent content for SAO; even this much content is far superior to Alicization. The bad news for the series is that normally such “alternate POV” and retcon series/movies could mean that the authors are having a hard time advancing or adapting the story further, which is not surprising. It is doubtful that the Progressive series is the end of SAO, but it is only truly impressive to fans and to people who have only seen SAO up to the first season, as this is simply a rehash/remake of an almost 10 year old anime. It would have been hard even for A-1 to screw this up more than the original. It is hard to call it a sequel or a new entry into anything as the plot hardly progresses in this way and the same goes for character development as most people watching SAO at this point know what most of the characters are going to be like in the following seasons. My prediction is that after or during the airing of the Progressive arc there will be a spin off similar to SAOA, for the aforementioned reasons. This review could have been much more critical of this movie, but I will leave the use of it as a punching bag to someone else.

Other than that, it was a fairly enjoyable half-length movie; there was no tension or ethos as such but also no heavy-handed attempts to create it when it would not have worked. The plot is also not yet built on layers of trash, so there is still room for creative freedom at this point.