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Sword Art Online: Progressive Manga to Start 'Part 2' in April With New Artist

The April issue of Kadokawa's Dengeki G's Comic revealed on Wednesday that the "second part" of the manga adaptation of Reki Kawahara's Sword Art Online: Progressive novels will launch in the magazine in April with a new title and artist. The new manga is titled Sword Art Online: Progressive - Hōei no Barcarole, and artist Shiomi Miyoshi is drawing the manga. The new title shares the same title as the novel series' third volume.

Kiseki Himura's manga adaptation of the novels ended in the same issue. Yen Press publishes the manga in North America, and it describes the story:

Yuuki Asuna was a top student who spent her days at cram school and preparing for her high school entrance exams - but that was before she borrowed her brother's virtual reality game system and wound up trapped in Sword Art Online with ten thousand other frightened players. As time passes, Asuna fears what will become of her life outside the fantasy realm - the failure she might seem in the eyes of her peers and parents.

Unwilling to wait on the sidelines for more experienced gamers to beat the game, Asuna employs her study habits to learn the mechanics of gaming - and swordplay. Her swiftness impresses Kirito, a pro gamer who invites Asuna to join the best players on the front lines. Is Asuna ready to swap class rankings for player rankings and join Kirito?

The manga adapts Kawahara and abec's Sword Art Online: Progressive novels that feature a revised retelling of Kawahara's original Sword Art Online novels. The story depicts Kirito's journey through the floating Aincrad castle from the beginning, floor-by-floor.

Himura (Tawawa on Monday, Just Because!) launched the manga in Dengeki G's Magazine in June 2013, and Kadokawa published the manga's sixth compiled book volume last June. Yen Press published the same volume on January 23. Kawahara released the fourth volume of the original novel series in 2015, and the fifth volume shipped on February 10. Yen Press released the fourth novel in English in 2016.

The original Sword Art Online light novel series has inspired two television anime, an anime special, and the anime film Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale. A television anime of the Alicization arc and a separate television anime of Keiichi Sigsawa's Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online novel spinoff are also in the works. The novels will soon enter the new "Unital Ring" arc. The novel series has also inspired multiple manga series, games, and a virtual reality demonstration in Japan. American independent production company Skydance Television plans to make a global live-action television series and a virtual reality experience.