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SWORD ART ONLINE ALICIZATION ANNOUNCED
SWORD ART ONLINE SEASON 3 FINALLY ANNOUNCED
This past weekend at the Dengeki Bunko Fall Festival the third season (installment) of the anime adaptation of Reki Kawahara’s light novel series was announced. The new season will focus on the “Alicization” arc of the series which is also the longest in the entire franchise (Volumes 9-18). The novels have been translated to English and have been out for quite some time but here’s a quick rundown:
Protagonist Kirito is hired by a company called Rath (a virtual reality developer) to test the new full dive system: Soul Translator. Apparently, the system is being disguised as a game when it is really a program used for military training. In order to protect themselves the developers at Rath eventually try to wipe Kirito’s memories of the Soul Translator, however a certain event will cause Kirito to re-enter the Soul Translator where the mystery will start to unfold.
The last two seasons did meet some scrutiny with how they were developed and spaced out. Each season was actually split in half with each half covering a certain arc. Fans who have already read the novels will note that the Alicization arc is the longest and contains more drama with darker themes than the previous arcs (and the first arc involved 2,000 people dying in a span of two months). The other two seasons were also released with a significant amount of time in between them (the first in 2012 and the second in 2015).
As a major fan of the series I am super excited to hear this news (my daughter was named after one of the characters). I have been reading the novels as well so I can’t wait to see how the story gets adapted. The series is coming off of a hot major film release from this past March. If you haven’t read the novels there is still time as no production or release date has been announced. The novels have been published since 2009. Here’s the teaser: