sword art online Sword Art Online Progressive Movies

[ben0119]

Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night -

I was advised not to watch this movie in the theaters when it came out, because of covid, then it took forever to come out on blu-ray and streaming (not sure why,) and I just now got around to watching it, couple days ago.  I saw the second movie on February 8th.

So, it was my understanding that the SAO Progressive novels were made to show the things that we didn't see in the original story. The original SAO story was written by Reki for a contest, and to avoid going over the word limit (he ended up going over it anyway,) he had to leave things out, which is why we had all those time skips and didn't see all 100, well 75 floors, since that's when they fought Kayaba and got out of the game.  Though I can't imagine all the floors could ever be shown?  Maybe all the bosses, at best?

Spoiler

With this movie, at the beginning, it seemed to be showing things that happened at the same time as things we already saw.  Here, we saw what Asuna did before logging into SAO and what she did in the early game, and her time spent with her friend Mito.

Although I do question introducing a character early in the story that we never heard about before.  It almost guarantees they're going to die.   I was surprised Mito didn't die in this movie, though I have no idea if she will survive Aincrad later on.  

I know it's possible for people to not bring up an important person from their past in every day conversation (or in a show, the conversations we are shown,) but still.

But then later on, I almost have to say this is like a re-telling.  There's no way that the way the fight with Illfang the Kobald Lord went in the original anime can jive with this.  Mito directly fought the boss, and gave Asuna a new weapon, which we clearly didn't see there.

But then after that, Asuna says goodbye to Mito and joins Kirito on the second floor, so Reki didn't commit to a full reboot, either.

I think I now I know what that author of that article was talking about when she said there is no true canon of SAO.

Anyway, first movie was good.  I miss hearing those cool SAO sound effects, the music, and of course the art work and characters.   Production values were high here.

We saw some more of the characters training, for the people who were complaining about the lack of that in the original Aincrad arc.

Spoiler

I hope Mito shows up again, because that would be a pretty lame way for Asuna and Mito have their final farewell. 

It was still stupid Mito ended the party and assumed Asuna was dead (I guess she ended it before Kirito jumped in.) But Asuna shouldn't have assumed Mito was just being greedy going after that mouse monster, either.

I do hope that Mito returns and can be friends with Asuna again, even if she's probably doomed to die, to explain her absence from later stories.

Oh and Mito is the one responsible for the braid in Asuna's hair! Dun-dun-dun!  Though I guess more important than that, is Mito is the one who convinced Asuna to play SAO in the first place.

And whoa, Asuna's hair is more complicated than I thought!

Sword Art Online Progressive: Scherzo of a Deep Night -

Spoiler

Well, I was relieved about what happened with this story.   I was afraid the the two rival guilds of the Aincrad Liberation Squad and the Dragon Knights Brigade would end up fighting each other, but Kirito and Asuna ended up preventing that by beating the boss with their group and keeping the Flag of Valor thing in limbo for the time being.  I didn't expect that the player killer guys had been manipulating the guilds into fighting each other.  

I wonder if these two guilds did end up joining together as the Knights of the Blood Oath, that guild that Asuna and Kirito joined that wore red and white.  Or maybe that guild had nothing to do with these two.

We had some good moments in this movie between Kirito and Asuna, before they became "official." Right now they are just "partners" haha.

I don't think any of this stuff was shown in the original anime, either, from any perspective or version of events, so this seems to be all new stuff here.

Spoiler

I am glad that Asuna was able to make up with Mito.  The way they left off last time just wasn't right.  I was so glad when they hugged.  It's still silly that Mito felt guilty for "abandoning" Asuna when happened was an accident.

But, with Mito deciding to mostly live a "quiet life" running a shop, and keeping her battle abilities honed by gathering materials from monsters for the shop, and promising to help Asuna if she calls on her, it can explain why Mito doesn't appear in the rest of the events of the Aincrad Arc in the anime, but, not for the other arcs.  So she may still be DOOMED.

Oh, and it turns out Mito isn't even in the Progressive books! *throws hands up* So who knows how this will play out from here.

At least with these other more minor characters, it is not a big deal that they didn't show up again. Plus I'm sure a lot of people wanted nothing to do with VRMMORPGs after what happened to them in SAO.

That golem boss was pretty creative.  Sending down arms and legs to crush, which you then have to damage until he comes down with his whole body to fight.

Of course we know that Asuna, Kirito, and certain other characters won't die here, but some moments still felt pretty tense.  However, Argo's survival was not guaranteed, given she is another new character.  I'm glad she didn't get crushed by the boss.

I'm also wondering if Argo is meant to be that catgirl, Alicia Rue, we saw in the Fairy Dance arc, but I'm not sure.   I also thought she had the same voice actress as Lisbeth, but it's not her. Oh hey, Yongyea is in this movie! 

Oh, and there is no fan service in these movies, unless you count the tasteful swimsuits Asuna and Argo wore in their "duel." I'm shocked!  What has happened to you, SAO?!

I still have no idea what the titles of these movies have to do with them, or what "Aria" or "Scherzo" mean, either.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aria

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scherzo

Ok, that doesn't clear things up at all.  But credit to Reki for not just making up words again haha.

But yeah, this second movie was enjoyable for me as well.  It's been a while, SAO.

Anyway, if you at least liked the Aincrad Arc of SAO, you would probably like these movies.

It is too bad that playing movies is mostly verboten on Toonami, as these would be great to air.  If Demarco is desperate for content, he should play the GGO Alternative series.  It wasn't written by Reki, so the people who don't like the other SAO stuff might like it.  Although I do think Reki has been improving as a writer over the years.

Edited February 9, 2023 by ben0119

[Top Gun]

I've heard that these movies defeat the entire purpose of the source novels, i.e. telling the full story of the game, because they repeatedly skip way the hell ahead in the story. Makes me wonder why they bothered.

Oh, and the only canon that's needed is TWO YEARS' WORTH.

[MasqueradeOverture]

No glopping noises?

0/5 stars

[PokeNirvash]

You know me. I'm not the kind who hates SAO on principle, or at all outside of those three episodes of Alicization: War of Underworld I griped about in the Trunks thread. But at the same time, I'm not the kind to watch franchise material of shows with Toonami presence unless I have really good reason to. As it turns out, getting invited out to see the second Progressive movie by your younger sister counts as "really good reason", so I wound up watching both Progressive movies over the span of three days. The first one is easily my favorite piece of SAO media I've seen for a number of reasons - the change in perspective from Kirito to Asuna, the added details surrounding the latter's experience leading up to and being trapped in SAO, and of course having pacing that doesn't feel like it has gaps in it - and was well worth clearing out my after-work, after-dinner schedule on Friday for. The second movie didn't have quite that same level of story hype as the first one, but like the music piece it was named after, it was a fun time with plenty of excitement to keep things from getting too boring. I'd be willing to sit through a third one.

Now for some replies to Ben (spoiler-marked for overall consistency).

Spoiler

I went into these movies fully expecting Mito to have not survived Aincrad as intended by Kayaba. Though it's nice to see she's held out well so far.

Plus that Joe guy (who I'm convinced is actually Johnny Black) was specifically identified as the one claiming they should track down and hunt/out any beta testers, which I don't recall in the original anime either. Especially since Johnny Black wasn't even introduced until Alicization, and as an "oh, here's the third Death Gun" afterthought type of way.

As far as gripes about Progressive 1 go, my biggest would have to be the whole thing with Asuna blaming Mito for abandoning her in favor of the rare monster/item drop... despite Mito coming back from that side quest with little time lost and before Asuna shot the fruit-bearing Nepenthe that got them separated for sure. I can understand if her frustrations were leveraged towards the sudden party disbandment message - I didn't have subs for the version I watched, but I knew what it said regardless - but bringing up the Spry Shrewman incident specifically reeks of misplaced blame. Kirito's response being "if the item drop was that good, I wouldn't have blamed her" admittedly helped alleviate that gripe, so it was more something I could bitch about in hindsight than in the moment.

Argo actually showed up in episode 3 of the original anime as Kirito's contact about that Santa-themed event boss, albeit with a slightly different design. I don't think her English VA was credited for that appearance, though it was definitely before her English VA, Kimberley Anne Campbell, entered the industry. So you could be right in that it was Sarah Williams (Lisbeth's VA). Either way, I don't think she and Alicia (who was voiced by Cristina Vee) are the same person.

Kinda surprised you didn't mention Vassago's cameo scene near the end there. His intro was probably one of my favorite parts, where he says "it's showtime" in gratuitous English and the subtitles (sis and I watched the Japanese version, since that's what our theater showed) didn't even pop up. Chills, the good kind. 😖

 

[ben0119]

On 2/9/2023 at 6:30 PM, Top Gun said:

I've heard that these movies defeat the entire purpose of the source novels, i.e. telling the full story of the game, because they repeatedly skip way the hell ahead in the story. Makes me wonder why they bothered.

Oh, and the only canon that's needed is TWO YEARS' WORTH.

Is that the case?  I will have to see if I can find some sort of review or article that breaks down what was covered by these movies.  Or maybe the wiki would say so.  I believe Reki had answered criticism about a certain arc not being covered.  I think it was because it wasn't completed in the novels yet?

https://www.dualshockers.com/why-sao-fans-are-unhappy-with-new-progressive-movie-reveal/

But this is about Scherzo apparently.

Though it makes me wonder how the heck those novels are being written, that, if the movies are jumping around with what they cover, and can't cover a certain arc because it's not finished yet, since I thought the Progressive novels were written in chronological order.  I'm not sure.

2 hours ago, PokeNirvash said:

You know me. I'm not the kind who hates SAO on principle, or at all outside of those three episodes of Alicization: War of Underworld I griped about in the Trunks thread. But at the same time, I'm not the kind to watch franchise material of shows with Toonami presence unless I have really good reason to. As it turns out, getting invited out to see the second Progressive movie by your younger sister counts as "really good reason", so I wound up watching both Progressive movies over the span of three days. The first one is easily my favorite piece of SAO media I've seen for a number of reasons - the change in perspective from Kirito to Asuna, the added details surrounding the latter's experience leading up to and being trapped in SAO, and of course having pacing that doesn't feel like it has gaps in it - and was well worth clearing out my after-work, after-dinner schedule on Friday for. The second movie didn't have quite that same level of story hype as the first one, but like the music piece it was named after, it was a fun time with plenty of excitement to keep things from getting too boring. I'd be willing to sit through a third one.

Now for some replies to Ben (spoiler-marked for overall consistency).

  Hide contents

I went into these movies fully expecting Mito to have not survived Aincrad as intended by Kayaba. Though it's nice to see she's held out well so far.

Plus that Joe guy (who I'm convinced is actually Johnny Black) was specifically identified as the one claiming they should track down and hunt/out any beta testers, which I don't recall in the original anime either. Especially since Johnny Black wasn't even introduced until Alicization, and as an "oh, here's the third Death Gun" afterthought type of way.

As far as gripes about Progressive 1 go, my biggest would have to be the whole thing with Asuna blaming Mito for abandoning her in favor of the rare monster/item drop... despite Mito coming back from that side quest with little time lost and before Asuna shot the fruit-bearing Nepenthe that got them separated for sure. I can understand if her frustrations were leveraged towards the sudden party disbandment message - I didn't have subs for the version I watched, but I knew what it said regardless - but bringing up the Spry Shrewman incident specifically reeks of misplaced blame. Kirito's response being "if the item drop was that good, I wouldn't have blamed her" admittedly helped alleviate that gripe, so it was more something I could bitch about in hindsight than in the moment.

Argo actually showed up in episode 3 of the original anime as Kirito's contact about that Santa-themed event boss, albeit with a slightly different design. I don't think her English VA was credited for that appearance, though it was definitely before her English VA, Kimberley Anne Campbell, entered the industry. So you could be right in that it was Sarah Williams (Lisbeth's VA). Either way, I don't think she and Alicia (who was voiced by Cristina Vee) are the same person.

Kinda surprised you didn't mention Vassago's cameo scene near the end there. His intro was probably one of my favorite parts, where he says "it's showtime" in gratuitous English and the subtitles (sis and I watched the Japanese version, since that's what our theater showed) didn't even pop up. Chills, the good kind. 😖

 

Yes, lacking time skips and focusing on Asuna for a change of pace was nice.  I like Mito, too. 

Spoiler

 

I was looking at the credits on ANN when I saw Johnny Black, wondering where the heck he appeared in the movie.  The silver-blue haired guy stirring up shit was him.  I'm not sure who the guy with the bag over his head in the second movie was, but I'm sure he was one of the player killer guild guys.  According to the Scherzo credits, Johnny Black was in that movie, too.  Maybe he was one of guys under the hoods, or the bag guy?

It is odd that Asuna got upset over the rare monster thing, and odd of her to assume that Mito was being greedy.  She should have been more upset about the party disbandment message, as you said.  It seemed that's how she reacted at the time, too.  But yeah, Kirito was trying to make sense of it.  He even said you already know what kind of person your friend is.  Maybe Asuna was using the rare monster thing as a coping mechanism or something.  Of course, we find out later that the monster dropped an item for a fencer...

I totally forgot that Argo had appeared before.  I need to re-watch the first season.  I looked it up on the wiki and she and Alicia Rue are indeed not the same person, although they look very similar.  Puzzlingly, Argo's English VA for the first SAO season is not listed on ANN, so I'm not sure who played her back then.  Weird since she is listed in every other language.  It could have been Sarah Anne Williams.  I was just thinking Argo sounded like her here in this movie, but it obviously was someone else - Kimberly Anne Campbell.  I tried to look up who played Argo on Behind The Voice Actors, but I cannot get the website to load.  I get a timeout error at the moment.  The wiki just lists Kimberly Anne Campbell.  Maybe if I re-watch the episode I could try to figure out who it was by listening to the voice.

Edit - I got Behind the Voice Actors to load finally.  It doesn't say who played Argo in English in the first season, either.  I wonder why she wasn't credited!

Oh I forgot about that!  I was going to mention something about Asuna's necklace, too.  At first, I thought it would protect her from the boss.  After a while, when it was sending the fists and feet down, it looked like green mist was coming out.  I thought that was poison that Asuna would be immune to.  I guess it was just dust or something.  It turned out the necklace would have saved her from Vassago's poison knife (which he turned out to be lying about anyway.)  Yeah, didn't expect to see him, but he was pretty badass!

 

I saw both dubbed.  For the second movie, I went to the closest theater that had it which was like a 12 minute drive just outside of town.  But, to see it dubbed, I had to wait a few days longer.  It was played subbed first before the dubbed screenings were available.

Edited February 11, 2023 by ben0119