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Crunchyroll Adds Sword Art Online: Alicization Anime
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
Crunchyroll announced on Tuesday that it will stream the Sword Art Online: Alicization anime this fall. The company will reveal the territory and streaming schedule information in the future.
Crunchyroll describes the series:
Where…am I…?” Before he knows it, Kirito has made a full-dive into an epic, fantasy-like virtual world. With only a murky recollection of what happened right before he logged in, he starts to wander around, searching for clues. He comes upon an enormous, pitch dark tree (the Gigas Cedar), where he encounters a boy. “My name is Eugeo. Nice to meet you, Kirito.” Although he is supposedly a resident of the virtual world - an NPC - the boy shows the same array of emotions as any human being. As Kirito bonds with Eugeo, he continues to search for a way to log out of this world. Meanwhile, he remembers a certain memory deep down within him. He remembers racing through the mountains with Eugeo as a child… A memory that he should not have in the first place... And in this memory, he sees someone other than Eugeo, a young blond girl. Her name is Alice. And it is a name that must never be forgotten…
The anime will premiere on television in Japan on Tokyo MX, Tochigi TV, Gunma TV, BS11, and MBS on October 6 at 24:00 (effectively October 7 at 12:00 a.m.), before airing on October 9 on TV Aichi. The show will stream in Japan on AbemaTV. The series will air for four cours, or four quarters of a year. The site did not specify if the anime will air for four consecutive cours.
The anime's hour-long first episode had a premiere event in Japan on September 15. The episode had a premiere event in Los Angeles on the same day. The series also had premiere events in Australia, France, Germany, Russia, and South Korea.
Manabu Ono (Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, Saki, The Asterisk War) is directing the anime at A-1 Pictures. Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale animation directors Gou Suzuki and Tomoya Nishiguchi will join Shingo Adachi for the character designs. Yuki Kajiura is returning to compose the music. LiSA is performing the opening theme song "Adamas," and Eir Aoi is performing the ending theme song "Iris."
The series will again star Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Kirito and Haruka Tomatsu as Asuna. Ai Kayano will play Alice, and Nobunaga Shimazaki will play Eugeo.
The anime will cover the entirety of the novels' "Alicization Arc." The Alicization arc is in volumes 9 through 18 of the original novel series. Ono said in an interview on the anime's official website that he accepted the job as director around the time of the Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale film's preview screenings, and he has heard from Aniplex staff since that time that the plan is to adapt the original novel series all the way to the end.
The novel series has two television anime adaptations, an anime special, and a recent film. The franchise has also inspired multiple manga series, games, and a virtual reality demonstration in Japan. Aniplex of America releases the anime in North America. Skydance Television is planning a live-action series on Netflix based on the novels.
Source: Crunchyroll
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