English Dub Review: Sword Art Online: Progressive-Aria of a Starless Night

Overview:

Go back to Aincrad but from Asuna’s perspective. She and her friend Misumi Tozawa brave the dangers of Sword Art Online. Their friendship will be tested but a chance meeting with a certain swordsman might just alter Asuna’s fate forever.

Our Take:

Sword Art Online is one of the most divisive anime franchises. There are people that love it, people that hate it, and then there are people that LOVE to hate it. While not my favorite anime, it’s still very good and there’s no question that to this day the Aincrad Arc is probably its best. So going over that with a movie budget and from a fan-favorite character’s perspective is a no-brainer.

I’ll always respect Sword Art Online because it was one of the first of my favorite genre. The isekai genre, or reincarnated in another world. While it’s more of a game world than anything Sword Art Online, Log Horizon, and Mushoku Tensei are the series we have to thank for how successful the genre has gotten.

I always like to touch on the negatives first because let’s get the bad out of the way first. First, I was kind of under the impression that Asuna was just the fencing badass. So seeing that she was pretty much garbage without Misumi’s assistance was a bit disappointing. Sure she found her inner strength and got there eventually and you know what maybe that makes her more of a badass.

The second issue was that the second half of the movie essentially felt like a giant retread of the first season of the series. I guess that makes sense cause she did spend a lot of time with Kirito here and near the end of Aincrad so it stands to reason there would be some overlap. That does mean I am more excited for the second movie which will hopefully have some more new content to work with.

The voice talent was solid as always for Sword Art Online. Bryce Papenbrook as Kirito is as solid as ever, especially when he decides to go into his edgy phase. Anairis Quinones lands another big role as Misumi Tozawa and she really deserves it. She has gotten so many roles in the last year that if you haven’t heard of her you probably will soon. Of course, the star of the show is Asuna so it makes sense that the standout performer is Cherami Leigh. She has always been a great VA and one of the first roles I heard her in was Sword Art Online. She does a great job of portraying a few different sides of Asuna we might not have seen before here and it was a great performance.

A-1 Pictures did great animating this. Everything was so crisp and you could tell it had a movie budget. The fight scenes were amazing and a spectacle to behold. The best fight scene was the floor boss they take on. In the show, it was just kind of a minor boss on the first floor but they definitely upscaled it for the movie here. It was impressive and A-1 really showed off for that one.

If you are a huge fan of Sword Art Online this movie is a must-see. If you’re not it’s still well worth the watch and is a pretty good introduction to the series as a whole. A lot of people say that their biggest problem with the series is Kirito so this somewhat sidesteps that problem. Asuna is an amazing character and I can’t wait to see the rest of her Aincrad story play out in future films.