When most authors are done with a story, they move on–whether that means that the characters from that story move on to a new journey, or if those characters are left behind as well is up to the author (and sometimes publishing companies). There may be side stories and spin-offs, but rarely does an author willingly take on the challenge of rewriting a finished work. Especially when the work is what the author is known for–such as how Reki Kawahara is known for Sword Art Online. The story has appeared in many forms; first being written as an entry for a light novel contest, then released as a web novel after he scrapped plans to submit it. After another work of his, Accel World, won another light novel contest years later, he was able to have SAO published along with his first-prize light novel entry. SAO, for all of the success it had, was an unfinished product. The light novel and the anime adaptation were mediocre as a result. For a series that blew up in popularity, the plotline really wasn’t that good. Kawahara would be the first to admit so, attempting to rectify this with the Sword Art Online Progressive series, where he vastly expands on the Aincrad Arc–the first, and most famous, SAO arc. Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night is an adaptation of part of the first volume of the Progressive series–with even some further revisions to Kawahara’s original story.
Aria of a Starless Night stars Asuna as the sole narrator. Unlike the light novel version, only Asuna’s point-of-view is shown. Your enjoyment of this movie depends if you like her as a character. If you think she is bland and boring, then you’ll think this movie sucks. If you like her or don’t care, you’ll probably find her version of events at least a bit more interesting than Kirito’s. Along with showing Asuna’s strict and suffocating upbringing, we get to see the original events that led Sword Art Online to change from a virtual-reality game to ‘real life’ from her point of view. Asuna, whose never played an MMORPG before, or any RPG for that matter, has to learn the ropes of SAO_ quickly. Thankfully for her, a friend from high school, Mizumi, is also stuck in SAO. Mizumi (otherwise known as ‘Mito’ in-game) promises to protect her from dying and get her out of the hell she’s found herself in. While Asuna is clueless about online gaming, Mito was an SAO beta tester and is more than happy to teach Asuna the ropes of SAO.
As this movie takes place during the beginning of the Aincrad Arc, the setting is mainly the 1st floor. Asuna’s luxurious real-life home and prestigious school are also shown, as we get to see what events caused Asuna to want to put on her brother’s Nerve Gear and escape into Sword Art Online. Most of this content is original to the movie, with Kirito not making a significant appearance until about halfway through the movie. The scene where Kirito and Asuna ‘officially’ meet, which was at the beginning of the Progressive light novel, doesn’t happen until fifty minutes into the movie. This movie is essentially a redo of the first two episodes of the anime–with a lot of extra added content and context added. It’s not exactly a one-for-one copy, but it’s the same plotline essentially.
This movie introduces a whole load of new content that wasn’t in the Progressive story (or the original_ Sword Art Online_ story for that matter), with Mito being an original character. Mito’s inclusion marks the beginning of a divergence from the mainline Progressive light novels. She completely changes the context of the story for Asuna, who in the original Aria of a Starless Night story didn’t have anyone to teach her how to play SAO until she met Kirito. At least that was implied.
Overall, Aria of a Starless Night is the best entry into the Sword Art Online anime series I’ve watched yet. I know that’s not saying much, considering the series, but I genuinely believe that this movie is solid. Is it great? I wouldn’t go that far, but Aria of a Starless Night blows the original anime out of the water. It goes without saying that an SAO anime that stars Asuna is way more interesting than one that stars Kirito. No offense to him…it’s just that he’s so overpowered that it removes a lot of the suspense a ‘death game’ should have. Asuna, while also eventually becoming very skilled at SAO, isn’t a ‘gamer’ at all. This is Asuna’s second video game that she’s ever played (the first being Tekken 7 on her phone with Mito, which Asuna sucks at). Unlike pretty much everyone else stuck inside Aincrad, she has no idea what the game is about, or even how MMOs work–leading to humorous situations, like where in the town square she asks an NPC where Mito is, referring to her by her actual name and unintentionally ‘doxxing’ her. The flip side to this is that Asuna, who until this point lived a pretty scripted life and only strived to please her family, is suddenly stuck in a world that she knows nothing about. Being forced to put that on hold and having to live on her own terms in a ‘game’ that could possibly go on forever is quite traumatizing for her. This movie shows her coming to terms with that.
The main complaint that I have about this movie is that at the liberties it takes with the source material. Of course, with such a major character like Mito being introduced, many things would have to be retconned from the original Sword Art Online and Progressive light novels, but some details that are changed do nothing but differentiate it from the light novel. One example of this that stuck out to me is Kibaou’s antagonism towards Kirito–it’s not that he doesn’t antagonize him in the movie–it’s that the points where he does are needlessly changed around. It doesn’t matter that much, but to me, it’s strange to change details like that around when keeping them the same wouldn’t tangentially change much, if anything, plot-wise. It’s unnecessary, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter that much. The resolution to Asuna’s main internal dilemma in the movie is ‘solved’ in an underwhelming way as well, with her seeming to just come to terms with what happened to her. I can understand why she would forgive in that certain circumstance, but it feels a bit unsatisfactory.
Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night is by far the best-animated portrayal of the Aincrad arc yet. Most of that credit goes to the fact that it’s adapted from the Progressive series, which is meant solely to flesh out the Aincrad arc that was blitzed through in the original light novel. Depending on how much you care about Asuna of a character will affect how you view this movie. If you think Asuna is a boring character, you probably won’t enjoy this movie, even if it’s structurally more well-put-together than the anime. Some of the retcons from this movie now mean that Kawahara has retconned his story twice, which is extremely funny in my opinion. To be honest though, the retcons are a net good. The thing that separates SAO (or at least its Aincrad arc) from most other stories is that it’s full of untapped potential. It’s a choice to just follow Kirito’s adventures–I know he’s the closest thing the place has to a Christ-like figure, but it does get boring watching someone be the best all the time and have multiple women fawn over him. Of course, Kirito still does show off in this movie, but the movie isn’t about him. Aria of a Starless Night is a solid entry into the SAO franchise–for a franchise that has had many duds in its history, it might be on the come-up now. Maybe.
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